The Hand You're Dealt
by casket4mytears
Summary: A B&B story with a twist! Booth doesn't know where he will wake up tomorrow or how old he will be. He doesn't know why his life is a shuffled deck of cards. But the stakes are higher than he understands: someone is in trouble, and only he can change destiny. It's time to pay attention - to everything. Slightly AU, inspired by the film Shuffle. May spoil up to 8X15.
1. A Short Time On Earth

_**AN: Hands up if you've seen the brilliance that is the movie Shuffle, starring TJ Thyne.**_

_**In watching the film recently, I suddenly had an idea for... well, I wouldn't call it a crossover or spoof. An homage, perhaps?**_

_**This story is partially AU - I've taken some liberties, both by introducing plot concepts from Shuffle and also by altering certain aspects of Booth and Brennan's past. Although we won't go there often, consider this potentially able to spoiler you up to and including The Shot In The Dark. For those who've seen Shuffle, I've changed a great deal of the specific plot points, so it will still be a fresh read.**_

_**That said, I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

"_Stop the clock and lock the door..._

_Sometimes, I feel like I don't know my life_

_Like you live mine, and I watch yours..._"

_**A Short Time On Earth – Matthew Good **_

* * *

**Age Thirty-Six**

He stands outside of the door for a solid five minutes, gulping his coffee as he paces. He ignores the scalding of the roof of his mouth, isn't bothered by the tastelessness of the brew. After draining three large coffees in quick succession, his tongue no longer registers taste, only pain.

The taste of pain is a flavour he's come to know well in recent days. Days? Years? He's not sure. Time is relative, non-linear and despite the range of years he's experienced, there is never enough of it in any given day.

Tomorrow, he will be somewhere else, but more critical, he will be some_time_ else and everything he's gained today will be useless.

So he drinks the coffee, contemplating the nameplate on the door. _Dr. Lance Sweets_, it reads. What kind of last name is Sweets? Is he the heir to a candy fortune? Is he saccharine in his approach, or so angry as to render his moniker ironic? And if he does enter, if he keeps the appointment he's stayed awake 49 hours for, will it ripple throughout his life, changing future years irrevocably?

All he has left now is the FBI. It's the one thing that remains consistent, aside from _her_. Yet even she is not a constant; she is missing when the wrinkles burrow into his flesh and his grey hair wafts in the breeze of some porch he calls home without understanding _how_ he knows it to be true.

Exhaustion knocks on his door, softly. In his head, he hears his friend laugh as she strikes twenty-three year-old him across the back of the head.

_Pay attention, dummy!_

"No time," he mumbles, reaching for the knob and turning it quickly.

The new staff psychologist looks about eighteen, and he wonders if maybe the doctor's also traveling along through time, living each day as its own unique world. Does he look the wrong age to others as he shifts? What would _she_ say about the notion of time travel?

"Agent Booth?" the shrink guesses.

"Yeah. Yeah."

He eyes the chair warily. It's comfortable. Comfort induces sleep and he has no time for that. Sleep is momentary at best, but when it ends, he's thrust head-first into another puzzle that doesn't match the picture on any box he's ever seen. He elects to stand, leaning against the chair.

"Would you like to sit down?" the doctor asks.

"Can't. I'll fall asleep."

"Are you having difficulty sleeping, Agent Booth?"

"Yeah, I'd say I have a pretty big damn difficulty with sleeping," he retorts, rolling his eyes. "But it's nothing like you think."

"So tell me what it _is_ then," Sweets counters, leaning forward slightly in his chair.

"Look, I need to know that what we say stays... here. I mean, I can't risk my job. I need my job." He chugs more coffee, grimacing as traces of grinds slide down his throat and line his stomach in gritty sediment. "Because it's a mess. I don't even believe it. You know, never mind. This is pointless!"

The doctor rises to his feet, moving to cut off his path of escape. "Agent Booth, please sit down. Our sessions are confidential. The only limits to that are concerns that you will harm or have harmed yourself or another person, and the welfare of a minor being endangered. Does your problem with sleep having anything to do with those concerns?"

He shrugs. "No. No, I guess not."

"Then let's talk about it. Maybe I can help you restore your sleeping patterns – "

"No! No, I can't sleep!" he snaps. Waving his coffee, he growls, "I've been drinking this crap like water for almost two days for a reason."

The kid looks confused. _Good_. Maybe he's finally getting the point. Of course, maybe he's also gearing up to revoke his field status, but at this point, the shrink's listening. If it goes to hell, he can just let his eyes flutter shut and move on, right?

Oh, hell. He's crazy. He's nucking futs.

"Are you afraid to sleep, then?"

"Look, Doogie Howser, you're going to think I'm a nutbar."

"Most people whom society refers to colloquially as 'nuts' – what we would deem psychosis – are by definition out of touch with reality. Thus, they don't know they're crazy. You believing you're crazy actually suggests a level of mental health."

He glares at the shrink. "God, you're so fresh out of school, it hurts. Reminds me of the blather my friend used to spout about anatomy when we graduated."

Sweets sighs. "Either you want my help or not, Agent Booth. Your being combative isn't going to solve your problem."

The coffee isn't working: his brain begins to fog over and every sound seems murky, drowning beneath the surface of reality. If he's going to do this, it's got to be now. He's got maybe ten minutes, twenty if the kid produces more caffeine or shoots him up with something speedy.

His legs wobble and he reluctantly sinks into the chair, leaning forward to resist the soft backing cushions and their invitation to rest. The doctor matches his movement, returning to his own chair with a curious expression.

"I'm thirty-six. You know that from my file. Yesterday, I was twenty-three. The day before that, I was forty. The day before that, I was twelve. One day recently, I was past seventy. Every day, I wake up and I'm a different age, in a different year and living a different day of my life and it's scaring the hell out of me." His hand presses to his forehead, willing away the throbbing in his temples. "I want it to stop. I need help. I've spent the last forty-nine hours awake, trying to find the courage to come see someone like you, who'll listen to me talk about all of _this_, because once I fall asleep, I don't know where or when I'm going to be and praying isn't helping and coffee's not working and sleeping isn't even sleeping. I'm never rested and I'm never in the same time or place when I open my eyes."

He glances up, staring down the psychologist, who is clearly overwhelmed. He was probably expecting insomnia, maybe bipolar disorder or PTSD from his military years. But not this.

_No one expects this_, he reminds himself.

"Can you help me?' he asks quietly.

"Let me just check that I heard you correctly," Sweets says calmly. "You're reliving days from your past, but also have been experiencing days from the future?"

He snorts. "You're assuming this is the the present, but for all I know, I'm really seventy and losing my goddamn mind to Alzheimer's. Do you have any coffee? I'm fading fast."

"I-I have a can of Coke – "

"That'll do."

Sweets passes him the can from a desk drawer reluctantly, and he can smell the "only child" on him. The reluctance to share is a dead giveaway. He cracks it open, scarcely hearing the familiar fizzing noise from the carbonation before draining the can in two gulps.

"Do you use any substances? Other than caffeine, of course."

He shakes his head furiously. "I have the odd drink, but no, nothing. Not that I know of. God, nothing makes sense. I remember the people in my life. I know my job. But the days I'm living – even the ones in the past – they're all foreign to me. I don't know what's real anymore. Doesn't that make me crazy? Isn't that what you said?"

The doctor ignores his question, instead prodding with his own. "How long has this been happening, Agent Booth?"

"I don't know. I mean, time isn't exactly clear for me right now. I only remember the days."

"What's the first of these days that you remember? How old were you then?"

In his mind, he is back there, standing in a cemetery. His eyes are weakened, his vision blurry even with the uncomfortable glasses he wears. It's sometime in the spring and he's seventy-three. How he knows this to be true is unclear. The grave he's standing over is blurred out. Distantly, he hears a voice, but he is tired, so tired, and his head nods down to his chest –

"You weren't awake long, then."

"Jesus, Sweets, I was in my seventies!"

The doctor looks flustered. "And... And the next day?"

The psychic smirks at him. "_Let the neurosurgeons have your brain. They know about your brain. They don't know Jack about your heart!_" He doesn't have time for this. Something's wrong with Bones. He feels it before the cards supposedly do.

"Dr. Brennan was there? So it was recent?"

"Actually, it happens two years from now," he corrects him.

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

He thinks of her burrowing her face into his shirt, feels the warm stickiness of blood seeping between his fingers as he applies pressure to the wound. He understands that in two years, he's hopelessly in love with her – his partner, his best friend. How is that even possible? Partners _can't _be involved. They just can't. And Bones... she doesn't even believe in love! Yet he knows it's true.

He doesn't tell the doctor this. He doesn't tell him anything. His eyelids begin to droop and it is all he can do to will them back open.

"Doc, I'm fading... Can't you inject me... with... something?" He shakes his head, the nausea setting in. "Gotta... make this stop..."

"Agent Booth?" The psychologist shakes his arm roughly. "Stay with me, Agent Booth."

"Can't... I can't keep doing... this..."

He feels the coolness of metal graze his lips, but it's too late: he's fallen down the rabbit hole again. One blink and he is standing in an airport, dressed in military fatigues. She stands before him, tears shimmering in her eyes.

_No, not again! She can't be leaving me again!_

"Booth?"

But she is. And this time, he senses she's never coming back to him.

* * *

_**I'd love to know what you think of this one... This is a taste of the sort of AU blended with canon that you can expect from this story. Until I get a grip on several things in my life, including a massive story load, this one may only update every other week. I'll do my best to be faster!**_

_**Sit back, set your alerts and review. Also, wanna win free CDs and goodies? Come find my music blog Twitter ( OTMidnight), where I'm giving stuff away for March 2013. TONS of stuff. Presents! **_


	2. Bloodshot

_**AN: Hello, readers quiet and outspoken! I'm hoping to update this story every ten days or so, maybe more often if inspired. This will be on the shorter side, I think - I'm seeing no more than twenty chapters maximum, which, when compared to a projected 30+ for The Mixed Tape, is short?  
**_

_**In this chapter, we'll see a little more of Booth's unique predicament, as well as the AU elements I've introduced. Consider the timeline essentially identical from the series, with some adjustments to the early years...**_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

_"Sits in his basement from midnight 'til four  
Painting pictures that nobody sees from his days in the war  
The canvas is painted bright red, red  
He heats up the shower, he paces the hall  
He'll scrub for an hour or more but he won't get it all  
The paint in his fingernail beds_

_The hill's still left to climb_  
_It's just so high_  
_And I'm so tired_  
_Come on, look me in my bloodshot eyes_  
_The clouds are all on fire..."_

_**Bloodshot – Jack's Mannequin**_

* * *

**Age 38**

"Booth?" she asks again.

"I'm sorry, Bones. It's just – I'm going to miss you."

"I will miss you as well," she replies quietly.

He has never doubted that she will miss him. They've been friends for far too long, all romantic love and dreams crushed aside. The question is, how much will she miss him? Last time, he didn't see her for six full years, and it had taken Cam prodding him to reunite them. That was then, when love wasn't even on the radar.

"Listen Bones, you gotta be really careful in that Indonesian jungle, okay?"

The words are heavy with emotion, falling from his lips with the impact of an anvil plummeting from a cartoon sky. He wants to tell her the truth: he doesn't want to go back to the Army, doesn't want her to gallivant across the world and risk her life. But he also knows how much this project means to her and, more importantly, how desperately she needs to escape his pathetic stares of longing.

If you love someone, set her free – isn't that the cliché?

"Booth, in a week you're going to a war zone. Please don't be a hero."

Like mirrors, they reflect. They always have. How he missed their connection years ago, he hasn't a damn clue. He manages to nod slightly, affirming her terms.

"Please," she repeats with a slight trembling in her voice. "Just… don't be you."

He wants to kiss her. He _should_ kiss her. But she doesn't want him, not that way. Instead, he seizes her hand, squeezing it firmly.

"One year from today," he says, "we meet at the Reflecting Pool on the Mall. Right by the—"

"Coffee cart," she finishes, smiling slightly at the predictability of his choice. "I know. One year from today."

It's too much. Saying goodbye to her again; losing her light in his world; this endless bouncing from year to year. It's all killing him, one blink at a time. His chest radiates pain, the way a bullet does. The look in her eyes might as well be a slug fired at his heart. She's hurting and it's because of him.

It's the last thing he wants to live through, because this is the future, he thinks, which means he somehow ruins their relationship with a wild, unplanned declaration of love. He doesn't know how he knows this is true; it just is. As he pivots and heads back to the base he's sneaked off of (he just knows), he thinks of the feel of her hand, of her delicate skin of ivory. Softness, warmth – the traits she hides from the world as best she can. The marrow of her bones.

He's flagging a cab when it occurs to him that maybe this is why he's been bouncing around. Maybe God wants to give him a warning, prevent their parting ways a third time. It would explain the lonely vision of his senior years, the constant returns to college. Perspective and prophecy?

_Or I'm just crazy_.

Resting his head against the seat of the cab, which smells like a strange mix of patchouli and grapefruit, he finds his eyelids beginning to sink and thinks, _Screw it. Not like there's anything to stay here for. _No Bones, no Bureau, no Parker (he's living in Europe this summer, or so he believes). And he is tired, so damn tired after... what, ten days of this nightmare? Maybe this will be the sleep that grounds him again. Maybe this time, he'll wake up where and when he belongs.

The eyelids flutter, and Booth submits to the exhaustion. _Let this be a bad dream. Tell me she's not really walking away from me again_...

* * *

**Age 36**

"Booth! Hey man, didn't you get your coffee this morning?"

He raises a weary eyebrow at Charlie, shuffling the reports he's apparently been napping on in this reality. "There is not enough coffee in the world to save me today, Charlie."

"Insomnia?"

"You don't even know the half of it," Booth grumbles, rubbing his eyes.

"Maybe you should ask that kid, the new shrink, for some sleeping pills? Knock yourself out cold, recuperate for a weekend?" Charlie suggests, tapping the keys on his laptop.

"Sweets?"

"Yeah, him. Only been here a month and he's already psychoanalyzing half of the Unit. You should go scare the crap out of him, like you do in the interrogation room. Kid's so green he'll probably cry for his mom."

Booth winces. Two years from now, he's aware that Sweets is an orphan, the adopted child of an older couple who spared him the hell of an abusive home. He also knows that Bones spent two days locked in the trunk of a car, something he wishes wasn't true, but he knows it is.

None of this is of importance right now. This is the first time he's bounced back to nearly the same day, which must mean _something_. His original appointment with the kid was three weeks into his employment with the FBI.

"Well, maybe I'll get the sleeping pills first, huh? Why shoot myself in the damn foot?"

Charlie nods. "Good call. But seriously, Booth, you look worn out. You and your partner need to slow down. Let us amateurs catch a few crooks and killers for you."

He wades his way through the departmental report he's supposed to be reviewing for Hacker and takes an early lunch. Clutching a large coffee from the cafeteria – true desperation, as anyone who's consumed the coffee there can attest to, Booth himself included – he barges into the shrink's office without an appointment, only half sorry for disturbing his lunch.

"Agent Booth? Didn't you come see me last week?"

"For me, it was the other day," he replies with a heavy sigh.

"This is highly irregular and inappropriate, but I would like to pick up our conversation from last time," Sweets says, setting his sandwich aside. "Will you be able to remain awake?"

"I've got some time," Booth replies, gulping the steaming hot dreck.

"Sit down," Sweets invites him.

Booth eyes the chair warily before assenting. It won the battle, but he would not let its puffy leather seat win the war.

"Last time, you spoke of living days out of order, specifically – " The kid flips the pages of a file and taps a page. " – Ages twelve, twenty-three, forty and seventy. Is that correct?"

"Yeah. I was thirty-nine yesterday."

A file. The shrink's keeping a file on him now. Just fucking great. If this is the present, he can kiss his job goodbye. _So long, Booth, hand over the gun and try not to listen to the voices in your head_.

"What happened yesterday?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay. Tell me about twenty-three, then."

First day of college: the day he met Cam in Introductory Sociology. She'd borrowed his pen and refused to give it back, and they'd had lunch together under a tree, laughing about their professor's ridiculous moustache. A naturally pretty young woman – very young looking – had passed by, catching his eye. Cam had laughed, jabbed his arm and told him not to bother.

"And why did she say that?" Sweets asks.

"Because Temperance Brennan had no interest in anything beyond her textbooks," Booth replies. "I heard it as a challenge."

"So you, Dr. Brennan and Dr. Saroyan attended college together?"

"Yes, although Bones graduated after three years and moved on for her Master's. She was always way ahead of me, although I've only just begun to understand it."

"And how did the day end?"

Booth gulps more coffee, scrunching his face at the nasty aftertaste. "I crashed during course readings. When I woke up, I was twelve."

"And what happened at age twelve?"

_He hears him before he sees him. The anger echoes throughout the ramshackle home with each staggered step. His body tenses, ready for the fight to come._

"_Jared, hide," he whispers._

"_Seeley – "_

"_Jared, go!" he hisses._

_His younger brother gazes at him with terrified eyes before finally relenting, burrowing himself in the laundry hamper within their closet. He shuts the door and charges to meet his father in the hall, refusing to reveal any hint of Jared's whereabouts._

_The anger is loud today. This will be a beating that will linger._

"_You worthless fucking kids! Can't do a goddamn thing right, can you?"_

"_I'm sorry, I don't speak drunk. Could you try that again without slurring it?" Booth goads._

_Mission accomplished: Jared's failing grades are forgotten as the first fist connects with Booth's left eye, sending him flying into dresser beside him..._

"Lousy childhood crap. Not important," Booth tells the shrink. "Look, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm just having crazy dreams from not sleeping properly. I never feel rested when I wake up. I look and feel like crap. Can't you give me something to fix it?"

Sweets hums for a moment, tapping his pen lightly against his thigh. "I suppose you could be experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations, coupled with intense insomnia. You recently experienced significant stress on the job, which would impact your rest. Maybe we could try a few days of sleep aids, see if that helps?"

"Yeah, that sounds good. I just really, _really _need a good night's sleep," Booth stresses, feeling hopeful.

The kid writes him a prescription for three – and only three – doses of a strong sleeping pill. Since it's Friday, he figures Booth can come back Monday and report on the effects. With a shrug and a plea to clock out early to Hacker, who strangely allows it, Booth finds himself at the pharmacy, pacing around in the aisles until his name is called.

Bones texts him while he waits, wondering if his headache is any better – a lie he told to explain his early departure. He insists he's fine, that he's picking up some Advil and heading straight to bed. Parker's coming over tomorrow, or so he senses.

He's stopped questioning the _how. _He merely goes with the facts his brain gives him.

_Do you want me to bring Thai over? You should try and eat something._

Ever thoughtful, she is. With the benefit of hindsight/future-sight/whatever-the-hell-sight, it's easy to see why he pledges his love for her in two years. But present-him, or whenever-him, had/hasn't a clue.

The relativity of time is fast becoming a pain in his ass. Even his mental acrobatics are tongue-tied in trying to sort the sequence of events out. Age twelve feels as new as age forty. Nothing feels like a memory, although he enters each new scene with the inherent knowledge to respond appropriately.

_No, thanks. I had late lunch w/ Charlie. Wanna do dinner with Parks tomorrow?_

The pharmacist calls for him and he listens dutifully to the blah-blah cautions before taking home his tiny bottle with its trio of treasures. As he drives, he blasts the classic rock radio station, hooting as Foreigner comes on the radio. It's "their song", although he can't quite remember _why_. The text alert chimes as he pulls into his usual parking space and he smiles while checking the message.

_I would love to, if it's not an intrusion. Diner?_

Booth quickly taps out a reply. _I was thinking your mac and cheese, if it's not too much trouble_.

The reply is quick, even for her standards. _You know I enjoy cooking for you. I'll have it ready for five-thirty._

He swallows the first of the three pills and changes into a t-shirt and boxers before snagging Bones' first book off the shelf. It's been a while since he's done any reading and he's suddenly inclined to immerse in the world of Kathy Reichs, famous forensic anthropologist, and the brash FBI agent at her side, Andy Lister.

_Thanks, Bones. See you tomorrow._

The drowsiness creeps over him quickly and he begins to regret the medication. Macaroni and cheese, time with his son – why does he want to skip these moments? Hasn't he had enough misery to last him for years in recent days?

_Unless this is the present and the pill fixes the jumping... _

It's a prospect that brings an enormous grin to his face, and somewhere between Kathy and Andy's first spat and their third, he passes out cold in bed, thinking of his partner and son. A family. His family of a kind. It's far better than the biological reality.

* * *

**Age 26**

"...Therefore, one can postulate that we might use the forces of nature to our benefit, as opposed to allowing them to be exclusively to our detriment."

The elbow that pulls him back from slumber is sharp and carefully inserted between two ribs. A hand clamps over his mouth to stifle his cry of surprise and pain as he quickly takes in his surroundings. Chairs. Stuffy people, scribbling notes on a pad. In front of them stands a polished and professional Temperance Brennan, with her prop, the bug-infested dead guy.

"Pay attention!" Cam whispers, grinning widely.

College. Specifically, thesis defense day for fast-tracking undergrad Temperance Brennan, future forensic anthropologist. The pill hasn't stopped a damn thing.

"This is never going to stop!" Booth mumbles in defeat, plunking his head into his shaking hands.

* * *

_**Booth, Cam and Brennan in college... Together... Oh, how this one changed element will ripple into the future/past/whenever, as Booth would tell it!  
**_

_**Next chapter, we find out why Booth is trapped in this cycle of life out of order, so stay tuned! I'll also be updating The Ring In The Reflecting Pool very soon! **_

_**Please review, say hi, offer your theories or take a guess at what B&B in college would be like, keeping in mind that Booth is as cocky as he was when they first met in the show...**_


	3. Narcolepsy

_**AN: We're back, baby!  
**_

_**It may take me some time to fully ramp back up to a biweekly posting schedule, but for now, we finally learn why Booth is shuffling through time... **_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

"_And there's a demon in my head who starts to play  
A nightmare tape loop of what went wrong yesterday  
And I hold my breath till it's more than I can take  
And I close my eyes and dream that I'm awake  
I try to keep awake  
I try to keep awake  
I try to keep awake  
But I, I can feel this narcolepsy slide into another nightmare..."_

_**Narcolepsy – Third Eye Blind**_

* * *

**Age 26**

Questions are asked, but Booth can't concentrate on them very well. Something about ethnic features and disruption of natural remodel-something or other. Who cares? He's still in a goddamn time machine without controls and now he's back in college, where he's dating Cam and friends with Bones–

_Oh fuck. Dating Cam..._

He remembers a conversation from another day and time, one where she brought up the fact that the two of them were dating "again". Knowing what he now knows from jumping around in time, he's certain she's always been jealous of his relationship with Cam.

Cam leans over to whisper something undoubtedly flirtatious in his ear, but he's not having it. No way. He's lived enough bad days lately and watching Bones squirm and feel awkward is high on his list of things to _absofuckinglutely_ avoid. Cam seems pissed, but shrugs it off, applauding with him as super-genius Temperance Brennan is excused with her dead dude prop.

"We should take her out for dinner," he says suddenly. "I mean, thesis defense is hell, isn't it?"

"Uh, yeah! I'm dreading mine next year. Why Temperance felt the need to barrel ahead and fast-track a year, I'll never understand," Cam replies.

"She did it because she's smarter than this school," he tells her. And it's the truth.

Thankfully, Dead Joe is not with her when she emerges from the lecture hall, her brow furrowed. Bones seems worried, although he can't figure out why. She's the top of every class, guaranteed valedictorian and her disgusting thesis project is also pretty damn cool. He remembers listening to her run-through a week ago, squicked out in his chair.

"_Aren't you destroying evidence by removing the flesh?" he'd asked._

"_On the contrary: I am revealing evidence," she'd replied, smirking._

"You were great!" he tells her now, playfully slapping her arm.

"I'm not certain. Dr. Mackenzie, as I learned this morning, is rather dismissive of flesh-stripping as a valid thesis subject," Bones mumbles unhappily.

Booth shrugs. "Who cares what that whiny jack-off thinks? He's one guy of what, five? The others will set him straight."

"You presented very well, Temperance. Confident and composed," Cam adds. "I'm certain you'll get an A."

She pulls her chestnut waves back into a low ponytail, immediately retreating from the polished beauty mask she's donned to impress the panel. "Thanks. Um, I need to get back to my room. I appreciate the two of you being here to support me today. You are exemplary classmates."

"Sure thing," Cam replies, seeming distracted.

Booth grins, pulling her into a side hug. "We're on for dinner, right? I'm treating."

"Of course," she mumbles. "Seven?"

"See you then, Bones."

As he and Cam walk away, he swears he hears her mutter it under her breath: "Don't call me Bones."

* * *

Afternoon delight isn't as delightful as it should be.

Oh sure, Cam's got that tongue trick of hers and the stamina of a cheetah on speed, but something is just... off. He finds his mind drifting and rewinding the earlier events of the day, studying her mannerisms and word choices with a critical eye. _Something's wrong_. He knows it and Cam knows it too, only the wrong she's thinking of is the fact he can't keep it hard despite her doing her best impression of a vacuum.

"Seeley, if you're not into this, then piss off. I have a Kinesiology final tomorrow at two," Cam snaps.

"I'm sorry, Camille. It's just –"

"It's just Temperance. What else is fucking new?" Cam snaps.

His temper flares as he snatches his pants from her dorm room floor. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Just go. I'll see you at dinner."

Cam is pulling her t-shirt over her head with a ferocity that doesn't bode well for the soft cotton. Booth, on the other hand, is thinking of dinner and realizing that _there's no way Bones would agree to dinner at seven because there's that anthropology lecture at seven she hasn't shut up about in three weeks_. She'd even arranged her defense for this morning to avoid requiring prep time during the lecture from Dr. Skeletor of Whatever University.

He dresses quickly and rushes off with very little in the way of goodbye to his supposed girlfriend. He knows somehow that he and Cam will break it off in two weeks, but the reason is a mystery. It's one that will have to wait because he needs to swing by his friend's dorm room and check on her.

The first problem: it's not her dorm room anymore.

The housemother says little, aside from her checking out for the year. Checking with her floor yields nothing of use at first – Bones keeps to herself, not exactly keen on the partying scene. But then, a shy woman reading a copy of _Wuthering Heights_ clues him in:

"She was heading to the airport. I heard her tell the taxi driver."

"When was this?" he demands.

"Twenty minutes ago. I think she said she needed international departures? I'm sorry. I tried not to eavesdrop –"

"I'm so damn glad you did," Booth replies as he rushes outside in search of his beater car in the parking garage.

He speeds the entire way to the damn airport, cutting off several cars in the process, but he's not even afraid of the prospect of the biggest damn speeding ticket known to man. Hell, he'd slug a cop to make it to the airport, because the words 'Bones' and 'international departure' have him terrified. Where the hell is she going? Why the hell didn't she say anything?

By some small miracle, he finds a parking space near Departures and storms inside, screaming her name at the top of his lungs. A security schlepp eyes him, but when he lies and says his girlfriend is about to fly away without her life-saving medication, the guard actually helps him bypass the damn security clearance without a ticket. Eventually, he figures out where she's going and storms for the gate, all too aware that she will be flying away in thirty minutes. He makes it with fifteen to spare.

"El Salvador?" he spits angrily at her. "You're taking off to El Salvador without so much as a goddamn goodbye?"

"Booth? What are you doing here?"

He finds himself halted by those icy blues of hers, the eyes that can see straight through his bravado and boasts and unearth the terrified man beneath. She's been crying – they're rimmed in red, slightly swollen and decidedly weary. But it's the way she's hugging herself, almost holding herself together, that tears his heart out.

He better understands why, years from now (for him, six days ago), she's so miserable when Cam first joins the Jeffersonian.

"You left without saying goodbye," he answers at last, softening his voice. "Friends don't do that, Bones."

Her lower lip trembles slightly as her shoulders slump. "It seemed... easier this way. I... I didn't think you'd notice."

"I wouldn't notice?! Are you kidding me? You're one of my closest friends and I wouldn't notice you bailing on me – on us?" He edges forward, shaking his head in disbelief. "For a genius, you can be pretty stupid sometimes."

"Well, for someone so gifted with the interpretation of human behaviour, you can be absolutely blind to the emotional well-being of others!" she snaps.

Overhead, coach passengers are summoned to the gate to board the impending flight to El Salvador and without hesitation, she reaches for her carry-on. Reflexes kick in and he snatches it away from her. She kicks his shin _hard_ but he doesn't release it.

"Just tell me why," he pleads.

"Extra credit for Northwestern," she replies coolly.

"Northwestern... You mean, next year –"

"This is goodbye, Booth. I have to board my plane. Give me my bag."

Her hand is outstretched, her right foot tapping against the tiles. His heart is sinking into his shoes and it's all he can do to not seize the nearest sharp object and carve it out. No feelings. No watching her walk away _again and again_.

"What did I do wrong, Bones?"

She shakes her head sadly and presses onto her toes to kiss his cheek. "Be safe, Booth."

_Screw it_. He pulls her into a tight embrace, choking on a sob. "Stay, Bones. Stay."

"You know I can't... But I'm grateful for your friendship." She tugs the handle of the bag from his grasp and steps into the line of passengers presenting their passes.

He watches her go, powerless to stop it. It is the worst feeling he's experienced since the night he called his Pops and begged for him to do something to stop his father's abuse. She turns back only briefly and flashes an anxious smile at him before disappearing into the walkway and he runs to the nearest bathroom and throws up.

_Why? Why am I living this? Why are the worst memories coming to life, one by one? And why can't I remember anything else in my life?_

Exhausted and spent, he slumps on the floor of the stall and presses his forehead against the wall. Maybe if he closes his eyes... maybe...

* * *

**Age 39**

"Jesus, Seel! How wasted are you?"

He peers up at his brother, rolling his eyes at that trademark smirk of his. "I came straight off thirty hours of work to make this wedding, Jared. Cut me some slack, alright?"

Jared nods. "Fair enough. Padme and I appreciate it, you know. But I'm pretty sure that Tempe is looking for you in there."

Booth rises to his aching feet, stretching his arms overhead. Aside from his brother and now sister-in-law, Bones doesn't know a soul at this wedding. Leaving her alone is pretty lousy of him. With the usual disorientation of this time jumping Marty McFly crap he's living, he doesn't exactly get a choice about the wake-ups.

He congratulates his baby brother on what has to be a wiser decision in the spectrum of Jared Booth Life Choices before leaning against a wall to regroup. He's thirty-nine again, which means he and Bones are partners. Beyond that... what does it matter? He's in hell. Might as well get shitfaced and maybe make a move on her. Nothing ventured and all of that, right?

He wanders past a table of presents and a box loaded with cards and pauses. A young girl, maybe Parker's age, is shaking the gifts one at a time. It's the Christmas grab-and-guess every child learns eventually, but wedding gifts aren't customarily durable.

"Sweetheart, maybe that's not such a good – "

She pauses mid-shake as something shatters within the box she clutches. Her face scrunches up as tears spring to her eyes. Booth moves in and sets the box back on the table.

"Hey, shh, it's okay. My brother hates tacky crystal. You did him a favour," he jokes. "What's your name?"

"Lily," she replies softly. "My mom says in Finland, brides used to go door-to-door to collect presents for a wedding with pillowcases, like Halloween. Isn't that weird?"

"Very! Is your mom from Finland?"

"Yup!" Lily eyes the table, studying the array of wrapping paper and ribbons. "I hope they like what we brought them."

"People love presents," Booth assures her. "Every one of them is special."

"That's not true," Lily protests. "You don't like your present."

"What present?"

Lily edges closer, whispering conspiratorially. "Someone's in trouble. You have to save them."

Booth shakes himself, wondering if this is finally it: the moment he realizes he's been locked in the asylum in a nice, white coat with hipster straps. Lily shuffles her feet, her pink lace dress swaying about her legs.

"I'm... This time thing... It's to save someone?"

"It's important," Lily stresses.

"But how?" Booth demands. "How am I supposed to save them? And who am I saving?"

"Just pay attention!" Lily hisses.

"Lily, are you bothering that gentleman?"

A petite blonde, mid-thirties, strolls around the corner and holds a hand out to Lily. Booth quickly shakes his head, wishing that mom had taken a really long walk so he could ask this strange girl about this _present_ and what exactly he's supposed to be paying attention to.

"No trouble at all. I have a son myself, close to her age," Booth tells her.

"I'm hungry! Is it time for cake yet?" Lily asks her mother.

"Almost. Come on; you haven't finished your dinner yet."

_No! No, I need more answers!_

"Booth?"

His partner joins them now, and in the confusion, the little girl is lost in the crowd. Booth cranes his neck, but it's as if she's vanished without a trace.

"Booth, is everything alright?" Bones asks him.

_Someone is in trouble. Someone needs saving._ Booth takes a good long look at the beauty before him, clad in a strapless crimson dress, and something clicks. _I keep seeing Bones in almost every jump through time. Bones leaving seems to be a theme._ He swallows hard, mumbling a promise that he's fine. _Bones is in trouble. _

"I'm just going to hit the bathroom and I'll be right back," he tells his partner.

He splashes his face with cold water, grimacing at the dark circles rimming his eyes. The lack of rest is taking its toll, but if this is a present, a chance to save Bones, then he's got to stay awake and alert.

_It's time to pay attention – to everything_.

* * *

**_Well, it seems Booth has been given a mission. But what is he saving her from? And why has he been given this chance?  
_**

**_I'd love to hear your thoughts and theories... Next chapter, we'll learn more about what Booth's trying to stop from happening, but let's see what you guys think (remember: this story is weaving in canon)._**


	4. Hanging By A Moment

_**AN: Life has been... REALLY busy. *ducks fruit*  
**_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

"_Desperate for changing, starving for truth  
I'm closer to where I started, I'm chasing after you..._"

_**Hanging By A Moment - Lifehouse  
**_

* * *

**Age 39**

_Mental journal entry number one. Since I obviously can't take anything with me in this time-travel nightmare, I'm just going to have to remember everything somehow. Alright... _

He splashes his face with cold water again, willing himself awake. He can't take long in here. Bones will worry.

_So, what's been happening? Patterns, Seeley – look for patterns... Okay, I seem to wake up a lot at 42 and when I do? Well..._

He steps outside, where Bones is pacing, curiously enough. Her smile buoys him through another moment of beckoning slumber. Taking her hand, he leads her out towards the dance floor, where an old song by Coolio is revving up.

"Oh, I know this one!" Bones exclaims happily.

"Thought you might. Let's dance!"

She side-eyes him for a moment, seemingly uncertain of the sincerity of his request. His hand instinctively reaches out to brush aside a stray lock of hair from her stunning up-do and she nods slightly, licking her lips in a shy way that sets off rockets in his slacks.

They hit the floor, dancing wildly and yes, terribly, but it buys him time to think with the bonus of increasing circulation to his brain. 42... apparently a terrible year, although he can't seem to figure out why. He's always depressed and angry when he wakes up at 42, and every time he tries to call Bones and make himself feel better, she never picks up the goddamn phone. Usually he goes back to sleep, figuring there's no point in suffering through it. After all, he doesn't only wake up that age.

He holds her hand and lets her twirl, not caring that it makes no sense for the song. It makes her happy and that is paramount. In the corner of his eye, he notices his trusty, yet well-worn watch. _Another note: I finally buy a new watch in the next three years._

The music changes again and this time, it's a slow one - Edwin McCain's "I'll Be" - and Booth grins sheepishly as he draws his partner close to him. Once upon a very drunken night, he'd called this in as a request to "Tempe" on the campus radio station. No name given, no trace of his voice on the air – he'd insisted on that much, despite knowing she never listened to the radio.

Except that night, she had. And she'd thought it a joke. She was pissed off, assuming some jock had wanted to hurt her. He'd never been able to confess the truth, what with Cam and the complications their relationship brought to their awkward trio.

"Do you remember this song, Bones?" he asks softly as they sway in a circle.

She pauses, tilting her head in thought. "The radio in college. The prank."

"You're still so sure it was a joke," he muses aloud. "You still don't think a guy was carrying a torch for you back then."

"No, of course not."

_I wake up a lot at 26_, he notes in his mental journal. _And 26 is wonderful – not because I'm getting laid on the regular and have a lot more energy and a lot less goddamn pain. The sex is nice. Camille is nice. But who am I kidding?_

With a dip, he leans in to whisper in her ear. "It was me who made that request, Temperance. And you know I wouldn't hurt you."

She gasps softly as he pulls them upright, struck speechless for perhaps the second time in her entire life, best he figures. "Booth? But Cam –"

"Is Cam," he interrupts. "And you are _you_."

_And you're the best part about waking up at 26, over and over. _

The night passes in a blur of scotch and shots and several dances bordering on clothed sex and Booth abandons his mental journal and _lives_ this moment, because something tells him that it's as important to be present in these strange disjointed days as it is to study them for answers. And when he takes her upstairs to her apartment, the two of them giggling and drunk, his hand seizes hers tightly.

"Let's not sleep yet," he pleads.

"Booth, it's almost four in the morning!" she protests. "I'm exhausted. You've been awake for, what, thirty-nine hours straight? Given the sedative properties of alcohol, I'm not sure how you've managed to reach my door on your own two feet."

"The pleasure of your company," he replies lightly as he holds open her door. "After you."

She flushes and moves inside, kicking her heels off the instant she's reached her foyer. They thump against the walls, expertly avoiding shelving units and display stands for her priceless collected artifacts. He's aware now that he knows a great deal about their origin.

"Did you want to change?" she asks softly as she enters the kitchen. "I washed your clothes last weekend."

_Huh?_ It takes him a moment through the inebriation but it comes to him: he keeps clothes here. At first, it was a pair of sweats for nights of endless paperwork over Thai; lately, he's got three solid changes of gear in her spare room closet. Ever since Broadsky surfaced –

_Broadsky_. He doesn't want to think of him, think of how he got away. He does, however, want to know what she wrote on that wish of hers last month.

"I'll change," he tells her.

He makes quick work of it, propping his hand against the wall as he staggers and spins. He's running out of time here and if he loses control... It could be 42 again. Or 12. Or 20, smack in the middle of the goddamn war. He's yet to return to his military years, which may be important, now that he considers it. _Remember that_, he tells himself as he tugs on the sweat pants and discards his tux. _Remember it. _To Booth, it's more evidence of his theory that Bones is the one who needs saving.

Speaking of his partner, she's not in the living room when he returns. Ditto the kitchen and bathroom. His hand hovers over the doorknob, wondering if it would be too presumptuous to enter her bedroom. Sure, they've known each other for 16 years, but there are lines they've only just begun to erase.

A loud thump makes his decision for him and he charges inside.

He only just manages to stop himself from shouting as he takes stock of the purse she's kicked to the ground with her delicate foot. She's out cold, sprawled across a good two-thirds of the bed in her typical tank top and pajama pants. Smiling, he moves to pull the covers over her.

"Hmmm?"

"Shh Bones, sleep."

He tucks the blankets around her lovingly, admiring her youthful expression in rest. She works too hard but he can't really tell her off when he's almost as bad. _Is that why she's in danger? Does she push herself too hard and –_

"Booth?" she mumbles.

"Yeah?"

"You can stay."

Her eyes flutter open briefly and those icy blues are a bullet to his heart. Hollow point, no less. He's done for. Hopeless.

"Yeah, alright."

He stretches out beside her as she curls into the fetal position. Her hand stretches out towards his and he accepts her gift, understanding its precise weight. She's not scared to reach for him now. She's invited him to stay the night. In the Temperance Brennan book of rules for men, these are rare offerings. He is trusted, important.

Not so long ago, that trust had nearly been ruined forever.

Twenty minutes. He doesn't make it any further on the fumes, but he slips away beside the woman he knows that he loves, hopeful that she maybe loves him back. Maybe he'll wake up t_hen_ soon.

* * *

"_Forgetting all I'm lacking, completely incomplete  
I'll take your invitation, you take all of me now_

_I'm falling even more in love with you_  
_Letting go of all I've held on to_  
_I'm standing here until you make me move_  
_I'm hanging by a moment here with you_  
_I'm living for the only thing I know_  
_I'm running and not quite sure where to go_  
_And I don't know what I'm diving into_  
_Just hanging by a moment here with you_..."

**Age 39**

For the first time in a while, he's been shuffled back to the same age. The thing is, it's a whole different world.

For starters, his day begins with Bones straddling his naked torso. He is all too aware of her nudity as she leans forward to kiss his lips gently.

"Good morning," she murmurs.

"I'd say it's a _great_ morning!" he corrects her, shaking his head in disbelief.

Her hips grind against him and he groans as she manages to run herself along the length of him in tortuous fashion. His hands grip her ass, tugging her to where he suddenly wants – no, _needs_ her, because this? This intimate relationship they apparently have? This has _not _been a fact in any of the other three or so dozen days he's lived in this loop.

"Nuh-uh," she chides him. "You and I have far too much to do before dinner tonight."

"Bones, _please_..."

He's begging shamelessly and the twinkle in her eye betrays hers. Her breasts hang full and soft in his face and he darts his tongue out to taste one perfect nipple, then another. She moans softly, leaning into his ministrations.

"Remember: be gentle," she whispers huskily. "They're sore."

"Sore?"

How much sex have they been having in this wonderful, wonderful world? He suddenly senses the answer is "a hell of a lot", although that's quickly pushed from mind as she slips a hand between them to stroke him firmly.

"Booth, I've explained this already. The hormonal surges associated with pregnancy and the preparations for lactation can lead to nipple sensitivity. I know how much you enjoy stimulating them, but you'll have to be careful."

His head falls back onto the pillow in shock. _Pregnancy? She's... Is it... Am I...?_

A memory comes to him, one he's never lived yet he knows to be true: a dark street corner. The two of them frozen beneath streetlights. Her anxious expression as she made his heart sing: "_I'm pregnant. You're the father._" As if there could be another possibility!

"Booth? What's wrong? Are you experiencing any headache or nausea? Hallucinations?"

He almost laughs at this last frantic question, because really, what the hell could he call his life but a giant hallucination? His lips press to hers, reveling in the warmth of her.

"No, Bones. I'm just still on cloud nine about the baby. I wasn't sure we'd ever get here, you know?"

She smiles shyly. "I had similar concerns, but love is trust, isn't it?" He nods and she continues. "I trusted your promise to try when you were no longer angry and I wasn't as impervious. I was nervous about the fetus, but I also trusted that you meant it when you told me you loved me after catching Broadsky."

"I do love you. God, I love you!"

"So love me now, because in an hour, we're due at Angela's to make final plans for the dinner," she replies coyly.

"Your wish is my command," he growls playfully.

* * *

It takes a few minutes for him to register what the dinner is all about - he blames this on the memory of her straddling his face while coyly suggesting an alternative to breakfast - but luckily, Angela's had Hodgins' people come by and set out a spread of sandwiches and hors d'ouevres to fuel them. As the starches begin to digest, his brain awakens in time to hear word of "sparkling grape juice and non-alcoholic cider" and something about surprises.

"You haven't told Hodgins." It's a statement, not a question.

"No, sweetie, I've kept my mouth shut as you've asked. Only us three are in the know - until tonight, at least!" Angela's eyes twinkle mischievously. "Your father is going to be a riot tonight."

His partner - no, _partner_ and mother of their child - visibly blanches. "Will he be very upset? Should I have told him first? Booth?"

"No Bones, it's fine," he insists, abandoning the samosa he was reaching for to hold her hand. "You wanted to surprise everyone with good news. A little joy after a hard few months."

"Because... I'm not good at these things, at social expectations," she continues, her eyes misting over. "This is ridiculous!"

"Hormones, honey," Angela reassures her. "I used to bawl at the Sham-Wow infomercial."

"I would cry at that too," Bones grumbles. "Terrible product that people are wasting their money on. But what does this have to do with my father?"

"Nothing baby, you're right," Booth declares as he pulls her into an embrace.

"Don't call me 'Baby'."

"She loves it," Booth teases, winking at Angela.

"I do not!"

Angela snickers. "Yeah, you do. And so do I. Jesus, you two took a million years to get it right, but goddamn, do you ever have it _right_."

Booth nods with a grin. _It's so right. Everything: us, the baby, our work - we're perfect together._ How had it taken him so long? Why hadn't he tried harder to make it work in college? The thought is fleeting, the answer plain: _She wasn't ready. We weren't ready_.

"You said something about cider?" Bones prompts.

Angela is off and rambling again about seating charts and subterfuge, because according to her, Brennan would never not drink, blah blah blah. It's all too detailed for Booth. What matters is tonight will be the moment they share their joy with their dearest friends and family.

* * *

"_There's nothing else to lose  
Nothing left to find  
Nothing in the world that can change my mind..._"

Temperance Brennan, striking her wine (sparkling cider) glass delicately with a knife as she rises to her feet, commands the attention of the party with the poise of a woman who knows her worth. It's one of the things Booth admires most about her. The confidence that many - himself included - have misinterpreted as arrogance, a hard-won belief in herself despite the odds, is simply beautiful to witness. Surrounded by those who know her best, she is met with smiles and curious looks.

For all of her self-assurance, she's not one to seize control of a room by choice. It simply happens rather frequently. In his mind, he recalls an awards dinner years ago and her frustration with making yet another speech.

"_The work speaks for itself; it's what matters. I don't need to be told I'm the best to know I am, nor do they._"

Bones-logic. It's sexy as hell.

"I wanted to thank all of you for coming this evening," she begins. "I felt that a celebration of family and friends was long overdue, and it's been heart-touching to spend time with each and every one of you away from work."

Angela grins, nodding in encouragement as they exchange a glance.

"I have a story I'd like to tell. I promise to do so with brevity." Bones sips her drink - false liquid courage - and continues. "I was in college when I first met Seeley Booth. He was rather quick to tell me then, as he tells us all, to call hm Booth. Annoyed at the disruption of my studying for an exam, I persisted in calling him Seeley for a week. As many of you can imagine, he was furious."

The group chuckled, none so hard as Jared and Pops. "But we eventually forged a friendship, partially because he was so adamant in his pursuit. I confess that I preferred to keep people at a distance for personal reasons many here already know and appreciate. Booth was a stubborn man, but a good one. He _is _a good man."

He felt his cheeks begin to flush, and quickly jabbed Cam's shoulder as she let out a loud "Aww!"

"If there is one thing we share, it's a dogged pursuit of what matters to us. The truth is what we work for. Protecting those who matter most to us. Justice. But Booth pursued me as well - as a colleague and friend, and as a love interest. And yes, I know very well about the betting pool from two years ago," she adds, glaring at Clark and Daisy.

"They say that the intellectually gifted often lag in development in another area - that the brain simply cannot distribute resources effectively. I suppose it's why it took me - took _us_ - so long to see what has always been so clear to so many. Contrary to many denials over the last few weeks, I affirm now that Booth and I are in a relationship."

Booth laughs as the group erupted in cheers and cries of "Finally!". He rises to embrace his partner, knowing full well that she's intentionally paused halfway through the story. She leans closer and whispers in his ear.

"Forgive me?"

"For what?"

"I need to bend one of our rules," she murmurs cryptically.

"I have something more I'd like to say," she states loudly, bringing the noise to a halt. "I'm an honest person, sometimes to a fault, but I lied to myself and others several years ago. I never saw myself as... as enough. As more than the friend with the guy hugs and paperwork. I..." She pauses, then blurts out, "I knew, deep down, why I really wanted a baby years ago. Why it had to be you," she adds, glancing up at him.

"Bones, it's okay."

"I truly didn't recognize it until your coma, which was why I put an end to that notion. I lied about it being about your health alone. It was a poor choice, and I understand it now, more than I could have appreciated back then."

And with this, she places his hand upon her abdomen in the universal signal of pregnancy that the entire human race hones in on, and there is a collective gasp of surprise and wonder surrounding them.

"It took us so long to make it work, but I don't regret a single moment of anger or tear of sadness along the way. I believe now that I will be a good mother - the best. Because you will be there as the father, Booth."

He knows Max is about to shoot his testicles off; he doesn't care. Booth's lips find hers and he affirms all of the love in her eyes. He knew it the day she crossed the courtyard; he still knows it as their friends embrace them.

His life is Temperance Brennan.

* * *

**Age 42**

He awakens in an empty bed, in a silent house.

The empty bed is routine; Bones is an early riser, always has been. She's the first to shower and first to start the coffee (which she's better at making, not that he would ever tell her so). But the silence, that's what's disturbing. Christine is also an early riser and she loves to chatter in mornings over her fruit and cereal.

He glances at the clock beside him and startles. _Ten! I slept until ten!_ The silence makes sense now. He is very fucking late for work.

"Damn it!" he curses, rushing for the shower. "Why didn't she wake me?"

He flips on the water and tears at his clothing, struggling to remember his partner's departure. He senses this isn't a weekend, and the watch on the counter confirms that it's a Tuesday. Why wouldn't he be working on a Tuesday?

_Maybe she tried to wake me and I passed out again_, Booth posits as he steps beneath the spray. _If we don't have a case, she wouldn't wait for me. She'd head to the lab and work with the interns on their latest projects_. Hacker was so going to hand him his ass for this. He was still bitter about Bones dumping his loser ass, and he enjoyed taking it out on Booth whenever the opportunity arose.

Calling out sick suddenly sounded brilliant. Which was just what he did, only Hacker's receptionist was incredibly confused.

"You're already off the schedule for today," she told him.

_Hmm. Bones must have booked me off herself_.

Speaking of his beautiful partner, he decides that a visit to the Jeffersonian is in order. He feels a deep longing for her all of a sudden, a need really. The last two awakenings and the beautiful memories he's created (recreated?) make her absence painful. He dresses quickly and dials her cell on his way out the door.

No answer. Typical Bones. It would take an earthquake to pull her away from her remains.

He swings by the coffee cart and grabs two, knowing that she likes her second cup before lunch. Small gestures, he knows, mean the most to her. Despite her wealth, she is anything but ostentatious - evidence of her kindness and humility. Upon entering the lab, he feels a chill roll up his spine.

_No one's here_.

Her office is empty, save a stack of anthropology journals piled on the corner of her desk. He sets the coffee down, his eyes drawn to the watch once more.

_This isn't my old watch_.

He removes it from his wrist, studying the band. Inside, a simple message is engraved. _We are the centre - TB_. That explains the change in watches. Booth knows there's no way in hell he could afford a $10,000 watch on his salary. His partner has spoiled him at some point.

Something else catches his eye: the lack of iguana. Had her beloved pet died? After Vincent's passing, she'd grown more attached to him, recalling her intern's alcoholic confessions. In fact, there's a lot of things missing in this office.

_She doesn't work here anymore_.

He knows it's true, but doesn't know how he knows. Normally, with each shift, his brain somehow fills in the blanks of his everyday routine. But this? It makes no sense. Unless...

_Did she leave me_?

His worst fear suddenly seems to be real. Temperance Brennan is nowhere to be found, and when she wants to be lost, she's a damn expert at it.

_Where's Christine?_

He doesn't know, but he knows who will have the answers for him. He's already dialing as he approaches his car. Three rings, then voicemail. He hangs up, curses. Two more attempts, no reply. Tears begin to fall and he pulls over near the Mall, struggling to breathe.

_Where are you, Bones?_

He jumps in his seat as the phone rings, relieved by the caller on the display. "Angela!"

"_Hey, Booth. We were out at a crime scene just now. Left my cell in my office. Are you okay?_"

"Not really," he admits reluctantly. "I woke up alone, and the house was so quiet..."

"_I noticed you came by the lab_," she replies warmly. "_You left your watch here. I'll bring it home with me so you can pick it up later_."

"Pick it up?"

"_When you come to see Christine. I assumed that's what brought you by - wanting to arrange a visit_."

Booth stares at the phone in his hand, her words ominous. "_Visit?"_

"_Booth, did you forget to take the medication this morning_?" Angela asks gently. "_You know that it was your choice for us to take custody of Christine temporarily. Where are you right now?_"

"Custody? Angela, I - "

"_I should have sensed something was wrong today. You're never without that watch, not since Bren gave it to you the night she died_."

The phone hits the floor of the car with a sickening thud as Booth thrusts open the door of the Sequoia and throws up onto the road.

* * *

**_Well, were you expecting that?  
_**

**_I have been beyond busy in real life, but I will finish all of my stories, I swear! Here's the game plan: I'm going to focus on finishing The Mixed Tape and this story for a while. I plan to write The Ring In The Reflecting Pool to its very end before I resume posting there. _**

**_In the meantime... say hi and tell me more about what you think is happening. _**


	5. No Light, No Light

_**AN: Thank you so much for the welcome back! I'm so thrilled to hear from you all and know that you're still game to watch Booth unravel this mystery. I went on a roll this weekend, cooped up with my bad back, and wrote another two chapters. Here's one of them right now.  
**_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

_"__Through the crowd, I was crying out  
And in your place there were a thousand other faces  
I was disappearing in plain sight  
Heaven help me, I need to make it right_ _...  
__No light, no light in your bright blue eyes  
I never knew daylight could be so violent  
A revelation in the light of day  
You can't choose what stays and what fades away  
And I'd do anything to make you stay..._"

_**No Light, No Light - Florence + The Machine**_

* * *

**Age 42**

He's still dryheaving as Angela calls out from the phone beside the brake pedal, that one word echoing in his skull: _died_. Bones... no, no it's not true. It's not right. But it is, isn't it?

"_Someone's in trouble. You have to save them._"

Lily. She'd said this hell was a gift, that he had to save someone. And he'd known that if there were a merciful God who'd seen fit to give him such a gift, it would be to save his partner, because the world needs her. Christine needs her. _He_ needs her.

Another wave of nausea wrenches the last bit of coffee from his guts and he spits the bitter liquid out onto the ground with a grimace. _Did I miss my chance? Why make me live even a single day in a world without her?_ Why not show him the moment where he needed to act?

Angela is still yelling through the phone as her car pulls up alongside his. He stares blankly at her as she dabs his face with a tissue and leads him into her car. Hodgins is also there, taking his keys. None of it matters.

_She's dead. How did she die?_

"C'mon Booth, let's go get you cleaned up," Angela murmurs softly.

He settles into the passenger seat, a million different scenes of the woman he loves dying playing through his mind like an endless nightmare. Car crash. Plane crash. Stabbing. Shooting. So many horrible acts people are capable of. _Why her?_

"Booth? Can you hear me?"

"Huh?"

"Did you take your medication today?" Angela asks.

"I think I forgot," he mumbles.

"It's okay, sweetie. We'll go to your place, get you meds and a change of clothes, and then we'll go see Christine. She loves her Daddy hugs."

Angela's trying to be optimistic, but it's doing nothing to assuage the sheer panic within him. He can suddenly hear Sweets in his head: _PTSD. Survivor's guilt._ He understands now why Hacker's receptionist was so confused.

_I'm not fit for duty. I must be on leave_.

"Angela? What happened?"

He glances at her worried face, noticing how thin it's grown. She's suffering too, but playing it off as best she can. She shakes her head slightly.

"Maybe we should call Sweets - "

"No, please, not the kid. Not right now. I can't... I can't remember it." He reaches for her hand, squeezes it. "As a friend Angela, please..."

She sighs deeply. "I found her. In the lab. Someone... so much blood from one bullet."

_Shot. She was shot in the lab._ Booth commits this to memory as he asks, "Why was she there alone?"

"Booth, this won't help you."

"Ange - "

"No. She was working late on a case. No one could have expected it to happen. All we can do now is find the bastard who did it."

Booth's head sinks back into the seat. _She's been murdered and I'm too screwed up to even find the guy. I've failed you, Bones. I've failed you._ Even their daughter is no longer entrusted to his care. How had it gone so wrong? Why was she at the lab alone in the first place?

"Are there any leads?"

Angela brushes a tear from her eye. "Jack has a theory... Nothing more than that. I'm sorry, Booth. We're trying... but she held us all together."

"The centre," Booth whispers.

"Yeah..."

He goes through the motions of changing clothes and washing up, more out of an obligation to ease Angela's worry than any real concern for his appearance. He's wasting time. Tomorrow, he could be twelve, or twenty. He needs to know exactly how Temperance... how she left him.

So he agrees to see Christine, but later, claiming he wants to take a nap and calm down before seeing her. Angela agrees this is best, although convincing her to leave him alone takes some effort. He's forced to swallow a pill - Zoloft - before he's able to lock her out and get to work.

His internet is down; the past due bill tells the tale. So much for easy information. He calls Charlie next, who fights him for five solid minutes about pulling the file. Excuses range from "You're technically a suspect" to "You're on medical leave and have no clearance" but finally, he caves and agrees to fetch the file from Genny Shaw. Relieved, Booth settles into the couch - her couch - and waits. Beside him is a photo of their family and he picks it up, admiring the four faces before pressing it to his chest.

_Murdered. She was murdered._ Such a vicious word for such a loving person.

"Where was I?"

It's getting harder to focus; the pill Angela made him take causes drowsiness, apparently. _Coffee_. He forces himself to his feet, opening the windows and allowing the crisp air inside as he spoons coffee into the filter and starts a pot. _I failed you already; I will not waste my time here on this terrible day_. If he's meant to suffer through a world where he can't hear her voice, feel her soft skin, then he has to learn from it.

"_Just pay attention!_" Lily demands inside his head.

He's halfway through his second cup of coffee when Charlie calls. "I've taken copies of as much as I can before Genny spots me," his friend says. "I could lose my job for this."

"Thanks, Charlie. I mean it."

"I'll be at your place in twenty. Man, why you gotta live in the 'burbs?"

Booth half-smiles. "Because it's what she wanted."

The Mighty Hut - _their_ Mighty Hut. One of the more taxing decisions of his entire life. He could still remember how nervous he'd been to show her the house - a skeleton, really. Leave it to her to see it as such and understand what his summers as a contractor had hinted at.

"_I can see the bones..._"

He pats the kitchen counter, running a hand along the surface. So many breakfasts shared here, coffee and banter over cases and vacations that they would never take. It was all _gone_. And what was left of him? A man unfit to even care for his child, a sleepy, pathetic man. He recalls the other days he's woken up 42 and it all makes sense.

Why would he want to wake up to this?

And yet, he wonders why he hasn't pulled it together long enough to find the son of a bitch who killed his love. He never could have foreseen himself paralyzed by grief. He has always been a man of action, especially in her time of need.

Another cup of coffee is poured and half-gone before Charlie shows up with the file. Booth catches the double-take before Charlie can fix a neutral expression, but it's not like he isn't aware that he looks like shit. And really, isn't he entitled to look as heartbroken and weary as he feels? Charlie can't or won't stay which suits Booth just fine.

He wants to be alone. He _is _alone now. Flipping the folder open, his jaw falls slack.

"Oh God..."

Her eyes... Fuck, they're open in the photo. Didn't anyone have the goddamn decency to close them? Didn't anyone respect her? His stomach churns, eyes fixed upon the details. So much blood... one small wound has destroyed so many lives.

Her tools are scattered across the floor - she would have been so angry to see them in such disarray. He could recall her berating an intern for being sloppy with instruments once. None of them seem to be near her hands, implying she didn't try to defend herself from the assailant.

_She knew the killer? __Or was she surprised?_

"Doesn't matter," he mutters bitterly. "She's gone."

The folder abandoned, he stumbles up to bed, where he slips into the closet and sighs in relief. A sweater still smells like her and he snatches it from the hanger and retreats beneath the covers. The pill is winning the war against caffeine and as much as he understands that paying attention can maybe prevent this, the thought of sleep is mercy. Absolution.

_Mental journal number two: I must be the reason why Bones went to the lab alone and got shot. Someone wanted her to remain silent. But they entered the lab long after hours... so they knew someone there. But she wouldn't be dead at all if she hadn't been working late, or if I'd gone with her._

He inhales her scent, quietly weeping into the soft wool. _God, you can't do this. Take me instead. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. I'll take that bullet. I'll die for her. Please... help me. If this is a gift, just help me_...

His eyes flutter close and he swears he can hear her voice whispering beside him: "_Pay attention_."

* * *

**Age 26**

"Booth!" A jab in his arm.

"Ow!"

"Wake up and pay attention! Our test is Monday and my mark is riding on your performance!"

He lifts his head from the textbook and stares into her stormy eyes. _Bones_. College again. She is so very alive and very irate. His hand reaches out, cradling her cheek gently.

"It's so good to see you," he mumbles. "Like the end of _The Princess Bride_."

Her brow furrows in confusion. "I don't know what that means."

His Bones: hopelessly out of touch with pop culture references, yet she could school you in multiple sciences and tell you your history of injuries after watching you take five steps for an encore. He knew that 26 year-old him had been daunted by her intellect, feeling unworthy of her. But older, wiser Booth knows that he is perfect _for her_ - she'd told him as much one night - and all of his youthful insecurities seem... stupid.

Unable to explain himself, explain all of the _emotion_ and _wisdom _this back-and-forth life has bestowed upon him, he does the only thing he can think of: he kisses her.

* * *

**_Oh, Booth! College Temperance is a very different woman! How do you think she'll respond to this overt advance? Let me know in that handy box down below.  
_**

**_Need more to read? I was on such a roll that I heeded the pleas and updated The Ring in The Reflecting Pool, aka "I dare you, casket, to write a fic where that engagement ring comes back to haunt Booth." Good times._**

**_And for those who love The Mixed Tape, I am going to try very, very hard to update that soon as well. In the meantime, sharing thoughts and theories is caring; sharing stories you enjoy is even better. I always appreciate it and tend to show that appreciation by posting more chapters from the stockpile. *wink*_**


	6. Younger Us

_**AN: Slap him. Freak out. "It's going somewhere." Lots of theories on what happens in this chapter.  
**_

_**In case you haven't figured it out, each chapter comes with a song that reveals a piece of the puzzle, captures the mood or vibe of things. I fully encourage you to look the music up. If you REALLY want to know the music behind the story, I may just tweet the 160 songs I'm shuffling. And now, another episode of The Hand You're Dealt (which I hope to finish before season 9!).**_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

"_Remember when we had them all on the run  
And the night we saw the midnight sun  
Remember saying things like we'll sleep when we're dead  
And thinking this feeling was never going to end_

_Remember that night you were already in bed_  
_Said fuck it, got up to drink with me instead_

_Give me that naked new skin rush_  
_(Give me younger us)_  
_Give me that you and me to the grave trust_  
_(Give me younger us)_  
_Give me my girls learning love, wild and free_  
_(Give me younger us)_  
_Give me my boys and I swimming through the streets_  
_(Give me younger us)..."_

_**Younger Us - Japandroids**_

* * *

**Age 26**

For a moment, she surrenders, her lips parting enough for him to slip his tongue past, tasting her. He moans softly at the faint taste of her study-session mocha latte and the peppermint gum she loves. It's only when his fingers thread through her auburn locks and pull her closer that reality sinks in and she pushes back, her expression one of almost indignant shock.

"Booth! What are you doing?"

"I... Bones, let me explain - "

"You're with Cam! And we - we're friends!" she continues, rising to her feet. "You fall asleep while we're studying and then you wake up mumbling about royalty and then kiss me? Wait... Have you been experiencing any sort of auditory or visual hallucinations?"

She's genuinely concerned and Booth wants to laugh, because it's so _her_ to believe that it would take neurological impairment for him to kiss her. She's never seen her beauty, never understood the allure of her soft lips and soulful eyes.

Her eyes. The lifeless ones from the last day are suddenly there and he almost cries out aloud in pain. Maybe it's the fear of failure; maybe it's that whole hindsight is 20-20 bullshit. Whatever it is, he justifies the lie to himself.

"Cam and I are on a break," he tells her. "I'm not hallucinating anything."

She runs a hand absently through her hair, tucking it behind her ear, betraying her firm look. "Oh... But Booth, I don't understand."

He rises slowly to his feet, approaching cautiously so as not to startle her. "Bones, we both know this material inside and out. We've studied for days. Let's go unwind, do something fun."

"But the test -"

His fingers press against her lips. "No tests. Let's just... go out. Together."

Her eyes averted, she edges backwards. "Booth, why are you doing this?"

"I've wanted to do it for a long time, alright? I admit it. And if you can't appreciate why a man would find you desirable, then let me spend a night showing you why. Temperance, _please_," he pleads, holding her hand. "Let's have a good night. A fun night."

They stand in silence for what feels like hours, hand in hand. Booth wonders if he's pushed too far, gambled too much, but if this is a gift, then they'll find their way together even if he screws this up, right?

"One night out," she says quietly. "No strings."

"If that's what you want."

"It is." She glances up at him, her lips curling into a soft smile. "One night only."

Booth grins and she laughs quietly, her cheeks flushing crimson. "Well then, let's ditch these books and get the party started."

"If I fail this test - "

"You're the smartest woman alive. Impossible," Booth scoffs.

Brennan laughs. "That may be true, but if you leave me incapacitated, I will demonstrate my karate skills on several of your appendages."

She continues to laugh as he covers his testicles all the way out the door.

* * *

It ends with a chair, but it begins with a car.

"Where are we going?" Bones asks him.

"Somewhere fun," Booth replies.

Atlantic City, to be precise. A dangerous place for a gambler, true, but he has no intentions of spending time at the casino. Okay, maybe if he ends up a bit short on cash, but only to reload his coffers to spoil his date.

_Date_. God, Cam would murder him if she knew, but didn't she always know? Her constant verbal sparring over his friendship with the anthropologist is woman's intuition at its finest. But Cam would never know; it was going to be one night only, by Brennan's choice.

"How far is it to our destination?" she asks.

"You trying to guess where we're headed?"

"I might be. If I am successful, will you give me a prize?"

Booth chuckles. "Sure, Bones. Anything you want. And we'll be traveling about forty-five minutes."

She remains quiet for moment, studying a passing sign and the speedometer. "Atlantic City," she announces cheerfully.

"How the hell did you know that?"

"Well, given your current rate of travel - 15 miles over the speed limit, as is your custom - and our current direction of travel, as well as your personality, it seemed a likely choice," she explains.

"Personality? I thought you hated psychology," he teases.

"I do! But preferences for recreation activities do dictate our future choices for outings. That's basic cause and effect: you choose activities that may create bursts of adrenaline due to your desire for excitement..." She hesitates, her fingers drumming absently on the door handle. "It's why your desire to spend the evening with me is puzzling. I'm not exciting."

"What? Of course you are!" Booth protests. "Look Bones, you enjoy a challenge, you laugh at my goofy jokes even when you don't know what they mean and you're competitive. How does this not add up to an awesome night of carnival games and public intoxication?"

She shrugs. "I concede that you may have a point. Although if you plan to drink, you certainly can't drive."

"Tonight. I can't drive _tonight_."

Annoyance flashes in her eyes. "I didn't pack clothes for an overnight outing!"

"We're going to party until I'm sober enough to drive us home. Half the fun of a wild night is coming home in yesterday's clothes, Bones. Trust me, will ya?"

"Okay. I do, you know. Trust you."

His hand squeezes her knee lightly. "I know. And I trust you."

The lights and buzz of Steel Pier quickly win over the usually reserved honours student. Booth finds he can't stop grinning and laughing as she rushes from one ride to another game, taunting him with challenges over who can ride the swing carousel the most consecutive times after ingesting cotton candy (he wins with four rides; she caves after three) and who can win the most stuffed animals (she does, carting eleven critters to his seven after an hour of steady combat). They fight over the best horses on the Grand Carousel and talk their way onto the kiddie bumper cars, where Booth strains his calf muscles squeezing into the vehicle. This is perhaps his favourite part of their time on the Pier, as his beautiful companion massages the knot until he feels relaxed and _tense_ all at once.

He flashes forward to another year, another more intimate massage, and it takes everything within him to not make out with her on the bench. _Slowly_, he tells himself. _This isn't the same Temperance_.

"What now?" she asks, looking a little like Santa with her sack of carnival toys.

"Anything you want."

"Can we walk on the beach? Without the toys?"

Booth nods. "Good call. Let's dump them in the trunk."

He manages to shove aside the spare tire and find room for their loot before slipping a small bottle of scotch from the backseat inside a blanket and tucking it under his arm. Her eyebrow raises slightly, but her smirk assures him she approves.

The moon overhead is full, stars dotting the sky in a twinkling tapestry as they remove their shoes and stroll along beside the lapping waves. He notices her hair is tousled from the rides and fights the urge to touch the silky waves. Her reaction to that kiss earlier... well, it wasn't entirely enthusiastic. _It wasn't entirely unenthusiastic either_, he mentally counters. Caution is the watchword.

Besides, he doesn't need to kiss her. This time, her presence, it's enough on its own. She is _alive _and happy. It's all he wants for her, all he's ever wanted.

"This was an excellent idea," she says at last, wandering to tiptoe in the water. "Thank you, Booth."

"Thanks for sharing it with me."

"When I was very little, maybe five, my parents brought my brother and I here. I don't remember much, except the water rolling over my feet and Russ vomiting his cotton candy on the drive home. It's nice to be here again, to touch the earth and water..."

"Kind of like being home," he guesses.

"I _am _at home," she agrees. "No matter where I lay my head at night, the earth is always my home. My food comes from the earth, the soil. We return to the earth when we pass on. The history of our world lies in the soil, in the rocks and water."

Knowing her family history from jumps into the future, this statement is more poignant than she intends it to be. Shuffled from place to place, the one constant is the earth itself - the skeleton of her life. His arm wraps around her shoulders, pulling her close.

"You have such a beautiful heart, Bones. You know that?"

She flushes. "Booth, you can't see my heart. It's inside me."

"Metaphorical heart," he chides lightly. "And you need to stop evading compliments by intentionally taking things literally."

"I do no such thing!"

Booth shrugs, gesturing to an alcove nearby. "Sure, sure. Care for a drink?"

"Absolutely."

The scotch disappears rapidly as they chat about their professor, their childhoods (carefully censored memories, he notes) and the constellations (she knows each and every one, proudly pointing them out). By the time the bottle's empty, she's leaning against his chest, his legs surrounding her waist. It's growing warmer despite the Autumn chill and Booth massages her shoulders to keep his hands from wandering elsewhere. Although, if she doesn't quit murmuring happily at his ministrations, he's going to lose that final thread of self-control...

"You never paid up for our bet," she whispers.

"Bet?"

"You promised me that I could have anything I wanted if I guessed our destination," she reminds him. "And I did correctly predict we'd end up here."

Booth swallows hard. "Well, I honour my debts. What did you want?"

She hesitates briefly, before saying, "I know you lied about Cam."

"What? Bones - "

"You're a terrible liar, Booth. I know you far too well." She pulls free of their tangled embrace to turn and face him. "I know you're still with her, that if you plan to take a break, she doesn't know about it."

_Crap_. He should have known she'd see through him. But if she'd known...

"You still agreed to come out tonight," he says.

"One night only," she agrees. "That's all I can give you, Booth. I won't be secondary to anyone. I'm not certain I want to be primary to anyone, either."

"Bones, I don't understand."

"All anthropological research demonstrating that monogamy is not our natural state of being aside, I won't deny the physical chemistry between us. I've sensed it from the day we met, and as a virile male, I assume you've felt it as well. But my schooling is of the utmost importance. I can't afford to be distracted. What I want is this... This night. And then, I want us to be as we were. I will never tell Cam anything. This is all we'll have."

It's that first case all over again, the night in the rain. One night was all she was willing to offer then, only she ultimately reneged and left alone.

"One night," he agrees, reluctantly. _For now_, he adds silently. And then she is upon him, her lips warm and soft, and all he knows is her touch, her taste, beneath the moon.

He doesn't remember her removing his shirt, nor does he recall precisely how her bra ends up in the surf. What he does remember is the way she sighs his name into his ear, and her gentle nips to his neck as his fingers slide inside her jeans. He remembers feeling safe and whole as she whispers what she wants most of all, producing a condom from her purse. Forever burned into his memory is the smile and nod affirming her choice - _him_ - as he enters her slowly, terrified to hurt her.

History is changing, he realizes. Her supervisor was her first in the old world; now, it is him. And he wants her to feel loved and cherished, not merely satisfied. He makes love to her as if it will be the last time he sees her - because it might be, if he fails. _But I can't fail_... _I can't lose her_.

They dress in silence as the first hints of sunrise approach and Booth is surprised to find his hands trembling. She seems unusually still and it worries him. _That was too big of a step. We crossed a line, a huge damn line, breaking all of my personal rules about relationships. _

"You okay, Temperance?" he asks tentatively

She glances up and smiles warmly. "Very okay. Just sleepy."

She takes his hand and they make their way back to his car, standing alone in the parking lot. So much to say, and yet words fail him. _You could break up with Cam. You will break up with her, because you're now a cheater._ But is it cheating to make love to the eventual mother of your child in a dream? Is it wish fulfillment alone? This world isn't real!

_But it should have been.__We wasted so many years_...

He holds open the door for her, ensuring her seat belt is fastened before getting in the car himself. The windows are down to shock his senses as they drive back to Philadelphia, his sweatshirt from the backseat a makeshift blanket to keep her warm. She falls asleep quickly, snoring softly as he drives home at the speed limit.

He's running out of time for this day; exhaustion is setting in. He gently shakes her awake when they reach the dorms, stifling a yawn.

"Bones?"

"Hmm?"

"We're back..."

She glances around sleepily, nodding slowly. "Yes... Dorms."

"I'll walk you back."

"No... your dorm," she insists.

"Mine?"

She takes his hand and he leads her around back, where it will be easier to slip past the house monitor who doesn't actually care about the rules anyway, leading the way to his room. His is a double room, but his last roommate bailed mid-semester, so he's solo at least until Spring. He slumps into the large chair in the corner, gesturing to the bed.

"All yours."

"Booth, we can both fit."

"That's just it, Bones: we _fit_. And you asked for one night. If I sleep there... one night becomes a night and a morning. And one night is what _you_ want."

She frowns, glancing from the bed to the chair. "This is more difficult than I imagined."

He sighs. _Just choose me now. I love you. I get it now, although I couldn't admit it then. I've always loved you.  
_

"I have a solution," she announces.

Without warning, she sits in his lap sideways, her legs dangling over the side of the chair. Her head rests against his heart with a soft sigh.

"Never the easy way with you, is it?" he teases weakly.

"You wouldn't like me if I wasn't a challenge."

His arms wrapped around her, the day he wishes he'd had years ago ends in a chair with a gentle kiss to her forehead and a vow:

Protect her, at all costs.

* * *

**Age 42**

He is startled awake by a coat hanger striking him in the face. Shoving the discarded blouse aside, he watches in confusion as Bones tosses clothes behind her, her shoulders shuddering... _Wait, is she crying?_

"Bones? What's wrong?"

"None of these clothes accommodate my lactating breasts!" she complains, chucking yet another blouse to the ground. "I may as well wrap a sheet around myself and go to work."

He's moments away from making a joke about how very much he'd appreciate the easy access when he spots it on the dresser.

A box. A watch-sized box, wrapped with a bow.

"Happy birthday, Booth," she murmurs before kissing him. "I'm sorry for awakening you so rudely."

He glances at the old watch on his wrist and understands: today is the day she dies.

* * *

**_Oh, Booth! Yeah, I ruined your birthday, didn't I? At least I let you change history for the better, right? Or did you ruin things? Hmm... Can't tell with me, can you?  
_**

**_A reward for those who let me know what they think: the next chapter song will be revealed to you. It may or may not provide a hint of what's to come. I will also answer any question you ask me that does not give away the major climax of the story, if you so desire! _**

**_Either way, thank you for reading!_**


	7. Panic Station

_**AN: Happy birthday, Booth? Well... um... shall we find out?  
**_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed.**_

* * *

_"You won't get much closer  
Until you sacrifice it all  
You won't get to taste it  
With your face against the wall..._

_Ooh, 1, 2, 3, 4, fire's in your eyes_  
_And this chaos, it defies imagination_  
_Ooh, 5, 6, 7, 8, minus 9 lives_  
_You've arrived at panic station..."_

_**Panic Station - Muse**_

* * *

He swallows back a rush of bile as he approaches the box on the dresser. _I have to be sure_, he thinks. _I have to be sure it's today, so I can be ready_. Normally, the blanks rush in to fill themselves, but this time, he knows only that he is 42 - as of today. Before his hand can tug at the ornate bow, Bones slaps his hand and laughs.

"Oh no, not yet! Angela will kill you. Remember, you promised!"

He turns on the charm, grinning in his best panty-dropper fashion. "C'mon Bones..."

"No, _you _will wait for the dinner party that Angela and I have planned, end of discussion!"

She takes the box and disappears from the room, chuckling to herself. Booth's fists ball tightly at his sides. Doesn't she understand that he _needs _to know what's inside?

_Of course not. She doesn't know she's going to die tonight. But I do... And I can't let it happen. _His expression is steely as he glares into the mirror. _I will not let her die. _

It makes sense now that Lily would call this a gift. After all, it's his birthday: what greater gift could he receive than a chance to spend another year with the woman he loves?

_Alright, wake up. Shower_. If he's going to cheat death, he needs full control of his faculties. Into a cold shower he steps, wincing as sheets of icy water cascade down his back. _Mental journal number three: she dies on my birthday. I'm certain there's a comment to be made connecting the answer to life being 42 and my answer to what's living for _dying_ as I turn 42, but I've got no time for pop culture or witty remarks. Bones is supposed to die tonight, and I'm supposed to save her._

He edges the warm water on, just enough to avoid catching pneumonia. _What do I know? She gives me the watch at some point - a very thoughtful gift, if overly generous. She dies in the lab, working late on a case. Angela finds her. She's been shot, but Hodgins has a theory?_ He lathers up, shaking his head in frustration. He knows nothing of use, aside from trying to keep her from the lab.

"What is the point of this?" he grumbles.

"Booth? You okay?"

"Yeah, Bones! Just... not happy about getting older," he lies.

The bathroom door creaks and he can hear her feet padding across the tile. "I think you only improve as you age, but I admit I may be somewhat biased."

Rinsing off the soap, he chuckles. "A little biased?"

"Are you implying I cannot be rational and objective in my analysis of your physique and attractiveness? Because I am a scientist, Booth! I have spent years maintaining a neutral position and allowing the facts to speak."

Scrunching his face, he peers around the curtain. She sounds so damn serious and almost hurt - until he catches her gaze and she snorts, trying not to laugh.

"Y'know, I love your version of sarcasm."

She kisses his cheek lightly, batting her eyes dramatically. "Who's being sarcastic?"

Somehow, she ends up in the shower, fully clothed and clawing his back in her indignant fury. Somehow, he convinces her to shower again. And unsurprisingly, they are both an hour late for work.

* * *

The first bad sign is the new case they're called out on. The quality control unit of a candy factory discovers that their trademark jelly beans are a little more gelatinous than they should be.

"A customer complained about one of our Halloween treat bags of 'grit' in the jelly," explains Frank Addison, the manager of the facility. "When we pulled bags from inventory, our lab determined that the composition of the jelly was not up to our usual standards. It was Sarah who found the fingernail."

Sarah is lying down in an office with a cold compress on her forehead, ashen in appearance. Booth decides that Sweets should take the lead with the distraught witness and watches instead as his partner examines the jelly vat.

"I think I see cerebral tissue stuck in this gear," she calls out to Cam from her perch on a ladder.

"Couple years ago, it was human chocolate; now, it's jelly beans? This job is out to destroy my sweet tooth," Booth mutters.

"Eating an overabundance of sweets isn't healthy, Booth. Your consumption of red meat alone is problematic, particularly at your age - "

"Way to make a guy feel loved, Bones," he grumbles. "We eat plenty of your rabbit food at home. What about Parker and Christine? How am I supposed to feel safe letting them eat candy now?"

"Childhood obesity is on the rise - "

He rolls his eyes. "Alright, I got it. Daisy, you understand me on this, don't you?"

"From an anthropological standpoint, rituals like trick-or-treating are an important exercise in social skills development and a rite of passage, Dr. Brennan," Daisy tentatively offers up as she collects a sample from the goo in the vat.

"Trick-or-treating originates from the tradition of 'guising', wherein youths knocked on their neighbours' doors and threatened harm if they were not given food or coins," Brennan counters, tilting her head. "Stapes!"

Booth knows when he's defeated and concedes, ordering the entire vat shipped to the Jeffersonian in anticipation of his partner's needs. _Yum yum_, he thinks bitterly.

* * *

Angela hurls and threatens to quit her job at the sight of the vat, while Booth pleads for mercy on his birthday, which takes the form of Agent Sparling and is anything but merciful. Sweets is moping, Sparling is mooning, Daisy is wilting and no one feels like a party by the time six arrives.

_The show must go on_, Angela insists. Booth is pretty sure she really just wants the excuse to get wasted. Surprisingly, his partner insists they all depart and celebrate his birthday, although she does note that she expects Daisy back in the lab after dinner to sort through the goo-covered bones currently being revealed by Hodgins' latest invention.

The gifts are wonderful and thoughtful, from the nerdy (a rare _Captain America_ comic from Fisher and Wendell) to the kind (primo Flyers tickets from Hodgins and Angela for Parker's next visit) and the booze is flowing so heavily, Booth forgets all about the watch.

Maybe that's why he's not more careful about starting a fight.

It's innocent: someone makes a remark about this year being particularly long to coincide with Booth being "long in the tooth", to which he jousts back, "You don't need to tell me. You're not the one who was left behind this summer." It's only the truth, but his partner's back is immediately up. Her silence eats away at him until finally, he pulls her aside at the bar and asks what her problem is.

"My problem? You're the one who appears to have a problem," she hisses.

"What the hell?"

She's shuddering with anger and he's frightened now, because it takes a hell of a lot to enrage her. The problem is, he can't put the scotch-soaked pieces together until she throws them at him.

"Is this how it's going to be? Throw my choices in my face to ensure I suffer thoroughly, as if it didn't devastate me to leave you?"

"What? No - "

"Because I can do that too. I have an exceptional memory, Booth. I can mention the time you told me you loved me and took it back in sixty seconds because I was too scared of relationships to take a recovering gambler up on a _gamble_," she snapped. "Or perhaps I can comment on the time you slept with my boss and then told me that people who work together can't be _together_."

He's flailing as he replies, "Bones, that's not fair. Cam and I have a history."

"So do _we_. I've known you for nearly two decades. Doesn't it count for anything?"

It's the booze. It's the lack of sleep. Maybe it's the way she can push his buttons like no one else. Whatever the origin, the result is the same: Booth shoves his foot down his throat and kicks himself in the ass with it.

"It must count, or else I'd start taking offense at how many times you've run away from me in those two decades!" She recoils as if struck and he immediately softens, reaching for her. "Bones, I didn't mean it like that."

"No, you did," she whispers. "And I don't blame you."

She pulls away and rushes off to the bathroom and he is stuck with the choice of rejoining their group after an argument or cowering at the bar. _Bar it is_.

"Scotch. Double," he requests, settling onto a stool and drawing a deep breath to steady himself.

He drums his fingers against the wood lightly as he waits for his shot, willing himself to calm down. _We're not perfect yet_, he reminds himself. _We've made a lot of progress, but we're still patching things up_. Relationships aren't ever easy; relationships with brilliant women who struggle with emotions are like skiing a double-diamond slope. It's worth it to him, because there's no other woman who will ever know him to his core and love him as she does, but it's hard work at times. He drains half of the drink on its arrival with a sigh. _I'll let her calm down for a few minutes, then apologize again_, he decides.

"Hey birthday boy! Yer missing yer party, methinks."

Booth glances at the older man beside him with an amused smirk. "Guess I'm not a partying guy anymore," he replies.

"I hear ya. All the fuss people make and sometimes, the best birthdays are the quietest," the man agrees, taking a swig of his pint.

"I'll drink to that," Booth agrees and they clink glasses.

"Well, if yer friends come complainin', you can tell 'em ol Jimmy kept yappin' atcha, and blame me for your time out."

Booth chuckles. "Thanks, man. I'm running out of my own excuses tonight."

Jimmy nods knowingly, a look of sympathy on his face. "I ran out years ago. Now, I drink a few here, let the missus calm down, then go home with the tail between the legs. I like this place. Founding Fathers." He smiles, patting the bar. "Did ya know this place was founded by a trio of young dads? The name's a bit o' wordplay. One of them was even named Abraham."

Booth shakes his head. "No, I didn't know. That's pretty damn cool."

He drains his drink as Jimmy continues, "Yep, and one of them married a lady named Washington. This is a good American business. S'why I support it." He finishes his beer and hails the bartender before leaning closer. "Look, I don't mean to be a nosy guy, but as a man married forty-two years, can I be giving ye advice?"

Booth shrugs. "Can't hurt at this point."

"Women are judged every day. Society judges 'em, men judge 'em, their friends and families judge 'em. It's a bunch of social psychology stuff that I won't pretend to be an expert of. Judge, judge, judge. It's why they're so critical of their fat asses in their jeans that aren't even fat at all - and really, I prefer me a round bottom." The old man winks and grins. "Us men that love 'em, we need to be careful where we're treading. We say truth, but if it's judging truth, or truth she hears as judging, it hurts the heart. Just understanding that right there helps diffuse 75% of arguments."

"And the other 25%?"

"Buy her something pretty!" Jimmy accepts a new beer from the bartender with a nod. "No more for my buddy here. He's got somewhere to be."

"I do?"

"Yup. That pretty missus of yours left a good five or ten minutes ago in a whirlwind."

Booth jumps up from the stool as Jimmy taps his watch in emphasis. _The watch! _"Thanks, man. Thank you so much."

He debates running out the door without so much as a goodbye to their friends, then thinks better of it. Maybe her gift is at the table still; maybe he can be certain. He rushes over to find Angela drunk, Hodgins holding her up and Sweets looking depressed.

"Did everyone bail?"

"Yeah, they saw your battle. Better go make nice with Bren, Studly!" Angela slurs.

"I will. Did she leave her gift here for me?"

"Nope! Insisted it was a private gift for later," Angela replies. "More wine!"

"Nuh-uh babe, you're done," Hodgins chides her.

"Sweets, can you do me a solid and bring the gifts home?"

Their boarder - Booth only learned this at the crime scene today - nods quickly. "Sure thing. I hope you patch things up with Dr. Brennan."

"Me too, Sweets. Me too."

He runs into the street and hails a cab, grateful for the yellow car that pulls up beside him almost immediately. "The Jeffersonian," he tells him, flashing his badge. "And hurry."

It's a fifteen-minute drive at normal speed; the cabbie makes it in ten, weaving in and out of traffic with abandon. Booth pays him double the fare out of gratitude and a refusal to wait for change, breaking into a full-out run for the secure entrance. His card grants him access to the corridor and he again runs, not giving a shit what it looks like on camera. Hell, let a guard come. He might just need one if Bones.. if she...

_No. She only had a few minutes' head start. She's fine, damn it!_

He flashes his card at the lab entrance and growls. Access denied; security override required. He swipes again - no dice. What the hell has she done? He's dialing the security office as he swipes again and again, hoping to trigger some sort of response from someone, _anyone. _After five minutes, he's debating smashing through the glass again when a guard saunters up in cavalier fashion.

"I need to get in there," Booth demands, flashing his badge. "My partner may be in danger."

"Agent Booth? Don't you have a card?"

"Yes and it's not _fucking _working!" he snaps.

The guard reaches his hand out and examines the card. "Aww crap, Sam must have disabled your after hours access instead of _Shelley_ Booth's. I'll swipe you in and go fix it right now."

"Thank you," Booth blurts out as the guard swipes the reader.

He heads for the Bone Room immediately, her home territory, and is stunned to find the space vacant. Very few bones are on the table, positioned precisely where even he knows they ought to be. Daisy has likely come and gone already. But if she's not here, where is she?

"Bones!" he cries out frantically. "Bones, where are you?"

The platform is vacant. Limbo - her other home at work - is locked up tight. He's running now from room to office to room, screaming her name, because _she's not anywhere _and she's _not answering_ and all of this terrifies him. He calls her cell at last, wondering if he's wrong, wondering if today she went home to their house.

A familiar ringtone trills from upstairs.

"BONES!"

No answer - not from above, nor on the phone. Her voicemail kicks in, her voice crisp and professional: "_You've reached Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian. I am presently unable to answer your call. Please leave a brief message with your name and contact information clearly enunciated and I will get back to you_."

He takes the stairs two at a time, his heart careening against his ribs. She is pissed - rightfully so - but she _knows_ his worried voice and she's simply not malicious. She's not answering him because she _can't answer_.

He sees her shoes first as he rushes around the corner into the lounge area: the left beside her foot; the right half-off. He traces the leather pumps to the bare legs beneath that stunning blue dress she'd changed into for his party, the hem rumpled against her prone thighs.

"Bones?" he whispers as he creeps around the couch.

As the shattered glass of the table beneath her sprawled, motionless body comes into view, he understands with sickening clarity that he is too late. He falls to the floor and seizes her wrist as the tears begin to fall.

"Temperance... no..."

Beside her right hand taunts the wrapped box, a streak of blood marring the once perfect bow.

* * *

**_*dons body armor and runs away for safety* There are more chapters, I swear! Don't kill me. But do let me know what you think please; I really love hearing from each of you, especially your theories.  
_**

**_Either way, thank you for reading!_**


	8. Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking

_**AN: Hello, new readers! So happy to have you along for the ride. And now, let's get back to poor Booth and his discovery in the lab.  
**_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed. Dialogue borrowed from episodes is strictly for context and continuity; no infringement intended.  
**_

* * *

_"I've got this feeling that there's something that I missed  
(I could do most anything to you...)  
Don't you breathe  
Something happened, that I never understood  
You can't leave  
Every second, dripping off my fingertips  
Wage your war  
Another soldier says he's not afraid to die  
Well I am scared  
In slow motion, the blast is beautiful  
Doors slam shut  
A clock is ticking, but it's hidden far away  
Safe and sound"_

_**Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking - Snow Patrol**_

* * *

A pulse. Rapid and shallow. He shakes her shoulder gently, wincing as he catches sight of a shard of glass embedded in her palm.

"Go 'way," she mumbles from beneath a curtain of auburn waves.

"Never," he vows, lifting her gently into his arms.

No pool of blood, only a droplet that plummets to the ground in slow motion as her hand rises from the floor. He examines every reluctant inch of her in search of a mortal wound. There is none.

"You're not shot," he declares hopefully.

"'Course not," she slurs. "I _drank_ shots. Lotsa shots..."

It's then he notices that the broken glass from the table isn't entirely table. There's hints of a bottle of scotch in the mix - likely the bottle they keep handy for late night paperwork. The only scent of booze is on her breath, which means she's downed several shots in rapid succession.

"Stay here. I have to get the first aid kit."

"Where'm I gonna go?" she whines. "Run away 'gain? That's meeeee..."

He finds a small kit beneath the kitchen counter and goes to work quickly, cleaning and dressing her hand after plucking the glass free. She winces and mumbles incoherently as he works, her head lolling to the side. He struggles to recall just how much she'd had at the bar, which means "too much" is a safe answer.

"What were you doing, Bones?"

She shrugs lazily, avoiding his gaze. "I don't know why you're with me. I jus' let you _down_ and _down_... and I told you. I told you I didn't have your heart." She emphasizes the word with a slap against his chest. "I'm a scientist. I'm _cold_. They always told me, and I am, aren't I?"

"No, not at all. You're one of the most caring people on the planet."

"You have not met... a representative sample of random people from which to draw that conclusion," she counters, raising one eyebrow.

Booth shakes his head. "I love you. I know you. And I know I screwed up earlier. I never meant to hurt you. You have to believe that."

She sighs sadly. "I do... And I ruined your birthday!" She falls face first onto his lap with a hiccup and a sob. "I'm the worst life partner ever!"

He strokes her hair lightly, a smile crossing his face. "Babe, you are the best partner in every way. You keep me sane and honest. You make life more beautiful just by waking up beside me each morning."

"Don't call me 'babe'," she mumbles weakly.

"Temperance Brennan, you are the only woman for me, now and always."

"I find I feel the same," comes her muffled reply.

Relief, love, hope - they're rushing through his body, invigorating him. It's a tender. sweet moment. Well, until she suddenly vomits on the floor beside the couch. Booth grimaces as it splashes against his shoes, holding her hair back at the nape of her neck. As she gasps for air, he hums reassuringly.

"I'm sorrrrrrrrry!" she wails pitifully.

"It's okay, it's not your fault." _It totally is, but it's my fault as well_. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

"Angela... was correct... about post-natal alcohol consumption..." she complains as he steers her wobbling legs to the nearest bathroom.

"Angela is smart like that."

"But I'm smarter," she quickly adds.

Her hair is damp, her dress disheveled. She desperately needs a shower. She's still gorgeous.

"And I'm lucky," he tells her.

Lucky indeed. Lucky to have her beside him in the cab as they head home, having paid off security to take care of the mess in the lounge. Lucky to have her in the shower with him, her arms looped around his neck as he gently shampoos her hair and lathers her body lovingly. Lucky to have someone to sleep beside tonight.

She's snoring beside him in bed as he finally holds the cursed box in his hands. The bloodstained bow is quickly discarded, the silver box pried open hesitantly. He laughs as he holds the contents in his palm.

A USB stick.

Wrong day, wrong time. He's been chasing shadows.

The video file of Parker is the perfect birthday gift: his son announces that he's spending the entire month of December with his dad and Booth's heart sings. Rebecca would have never made this gesture on her own. No, this is all Bones.

_It hasn't happened yet, which means I can still try to prevent it. No more late nights at the lab_, he vows. _She has to understand. _As he slips back into bed behind her and wraps his arm around her sleeping form, he prays to wake up beside her.

God, he'll soon learn, has a funny sense of humour.

* * *

**Age 40**

His palm is sticky and warm.

It's a sensation he knows far too well from time spent as a soldier: blood. Someone is bleeding. He pushes up to a seated position and instinctively surveys his torso and limbs. He's fine. But she is sprawled face down on the platform, surrounded by shards of glass.

_Glass?_ It's deja vu of the worst kind. He calls to her frantically, relieved that she's gingerly rising to her feet with no signs of injury. But if not her, then...

_Oh fuck._ Vincent, the intern. Two feet away, he's on his back, a cell phone clutched in hand. Booth's cell phone, to be precise. He lunges at the young man, applying pressure to the wound pouring blood from his chest.

"Open your eyes, Vincent!" he orders him. "Stay with me!"

It's all coming back to him now, the reality and gravity of their situation suddenly apparent: Broadsky. The call was for him, but he wanted to trace it, so he'd passed off the phone. He'd dived towards Bones as the glass shattered, shoving her away from what he'd suddenly recognized as a big red bulls-eye on their damn backs. But the kid... Booth could feel the blood pulsing even as a security guard called for the ambulance. It's too much.

"I... ple-please don't. Just don't make me go. I-I don't want to go. I love -it's been lovely. Being here with - with you..."

_We're losing him_, Booth laments as his partner is at his side, bordering on frantic as the tears begin to fall.

"No! You can stay here as long as you like, Vincent. You're my favorite! Everyone knows that. Right, Booth?"

_She's losing him... Lost him_. He sees that familiar shadow overtake the intern's eyes, feels his heart still beneath his palms and he slowly lifts his hands. _Please take care of him_, he asks God. _He was so young... He didn't deserve this_.

"You have to keep the pressure on!" she cries, her own hands reaching out in vain.

"No, I don't, Bones," he tells her quietly.

She sits in stunned silence for a minute, then collapses into his waiting arms as the paramedics rush in. _Too late. _He's always too late.

* * *

It's not negotiable. "You're staying with me tonight," he tells her.

"Okay."

He wonders whether her lack of resistance stems from the stare he gives her or her own sense of mortality. Whatever drives her, she willingly gets into the Sequoia and obeys each direction he gives her. She tells no one where she's going, gives no indication of a disruption in routine. He's paranoid but with Broadsky, he can't take chances. Vincent is the painful proof of what the man is capable of.

He draws the line at telling her to sleep beside him, where he can literally wrap himself around her frame and be a human shield. She is grieving and scared, no matter how stoic a front she's presenting as she smooths the sheets over the couch and fluffs the proffered pillow. He does pause to kiss her forehead, inhaling the scent of her deeply.

"Goodnight," he murmurs.

"Goodnight, Booth," she whispers softly.

He closes his bedroom door and the sound reverberates ominously in his skull. A death knell. _Ask not for whom the bell tolls_. He stands beside the bed for several minutes, staring at the gun on the bedside table. Helpless. Broadsky is coming, soon. He understands that somehow, they survive this, just as they've survived so many other close calls. But two years from now, something goes wrong. Their luck is going to run out.

And yet, they're still not _together_. What is wrong with them? With him? Because it must be him, Booth reasons as he pulls the covers down. She is pure in heart. She is complex yet ultimately uncomplicated.

It is a restless night that passes, sleepless and lonely. From the living room come the sounds of tossing and turning, faint sighs of heartache. Each time she stirs he also shifts, mulling his best course of action. Go to her, let her process, call her in - each alternative is considered and rejected in a fit of frustration. He's going to be hunting a calculating predator come morning and he will be exhausted and slow.

_Maybe I'll be killed_, he thinks miserably. _But maybe she'll then be spared_. It's the one bright spot in the whole damn mess, almost enough to lull him to sleep. A creaking outside his door engages his sniper mind and his hand immediately flies for the gun beside him, releasing the safety as the door swings open.

Bones. She's startled by the barrel of the gun aimed at her heart; he's startled by the swelling of her eyes.

"It's me," she mumbles.

He lowers the gun cautiously, adrenaline coursing through his veins. _Danger_, it insists. _Danger is coming. Be ready_. And he is: every muscle has drawn taut, coiled to spring at a moment's notice.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"He kept saying 'don't make me go.'"

Confusion creeps in, misty tendrils on the battlefield. "What?"

**"**Vincent," she continues sadly. "He was looking at me and he was saying 'don't make me leave.'" She is crying now and he struggles to draw a breath at the sight. "He said that he loved being there. Why would he think that _I'm_ the one making him leave? What kind of person am I?"

_Oh, God. She thinks..._ "Come here." He pats the bed beside him and she gingerly settles at his side. "No, no, no, Bones... You got that all wrong, alright? You got it all wrong."

"No, I heard him. You did, too. 'Don't make me leave.' That's what he said," she insists, her voice pained.

"He wasn't talking to you," Booth tells her.

The trouble with a brilliant woman like Temperance Brennan is that she is brilliant precisely because she is stubborn and focused. And right now, all of her guilt and sorrow are focused on a dying man's last words.

**"**I was the only one there. And you. He wasn't - He wasn't talking to you," she continues.

Bones-logic at its most devastating. There's no easy way to explain what he understands from agonizing experience.

"I think he was talking to God. He didn't want to die," he tells her, his hand sliding across the covers to graze hers.

She's not having it. **"**No, Vincent was like me, Booth. He was an atheist."

**"**Okay. He was talking to the universe, then," he concedes, meeting her halfway. "He didn't want to go. He wasn't ready, Bones. He wanted to stay."

Her voice cracks and in his mind, he can see her as a young girl, her parents gone, her brother walking away. "If there was a God then he would have let Vincent stay here with us."

"That's not how it works," he apologizes.

How he wishes it was... that the innocent never perished, that he was out of a job. That she could remain within the walls of the Jeffersonian, happily examining caveman skulls and studying _osteo-whatchamacallit_ diseases in donated-to-science bodies.

"Can I just...?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm here." He embraces her tightly against his chest, gently lowering them to the bed. "I'm right here."

He is aware as she sobs quietly into his shirt of how fragile she is, how very small at this moment. To him, she's always been larger than life - a fellow warrior spirit, fighting in the name of truth. Her mind, her perseverance and refusal to back down in the face of those who expect her to cower... it's what leaves him awestruck when he pauses to admire her. But now, on this night, she is exposed and raw. There are no words to shield a heart that grieves a kindred spirit. He suddenly recalls Zack and understands that the hurt is compounded because she has again lost more than an intern. She has lost family.

"I couldn't help him," she whispers sadly. "I couldn't... fix it."

"It was too great of a wound to heal, Bones. There was nothing either of us could have done." He almost believes himself.

"You tried."

His fingers run absently over her hair, smoothing the strands back from her ashen face. "You were there for him, Bones. You were there. And you two made a lot of great memories. I mean... When I was shot, you were there for me. And I was thinking that if I _had_ to go, if it was over for me, that there were far worse ways than seeing your face one last time... Knowing you cared..."

Her hand comes to rest on his scar - his enduring reminder of that night, a moment of her beauty marred by blood spilled and promises kept that never should have been made. His breath hitches as her lips press against his shirt, kissing away aching hurt.

"Booth... It feels like there's no time..."

"It's okay to be scared," he reassures her.

She presses up to meet his gaze with those hazy blues that haunt his very soul, her head shaking slightly. "Not just this... Us. The time keeps slipping away."

He understands. "I'm not angry..."

Her hand cups his cheek, fingertips dancing along his five o'clock shadow. "I'm anything but impervious..."

His hand fists in her hair as their mouths meet in a frenzy of kisses, their limbs tangling wildly in a desire to touch, to know. Every caress of her palm along his arm insists, _This is real_. Each finger tracking the curve of her hip declares, _We are here_. It is a passion born of a desperate need to feel _alive_ and celebrate that truth and while it's hardly the slow, sensual burn he's been longing for, it's the most honest he's been with anyone. Every scar is kissed, each laugh line cherished.

_Proof of life_, he thinks, palming her abdomen as they are finally sated knowingly. _Life_. What a beautiful word. He will die, if that's what it takes to defend it.

"I love you so much," he whispers to the near-slumbering woman in his arms.

"I've wanted to be brave enough to love you since I was 18," she confesses.

"That's a long time," he teases gently.

Another kiss, delicate and sweet. "Rest, Booth. Broadsky - "

"Goes down tomorrow," he promises her. "And I will come home to you. I will always come home to you."

"Come home to you," she echoes sleepily.

_Please God_, he prays. Help me keep that promise._ Help us both keep our promises. Let me wake up tomorrow and understand what I need to do to save her life._

* * *

**_You really didn't think I'd kill her on his birthday, did you? I'm mean, but not that mean.  
_**

**_Next chapter, we take a little walk down memory lane as Booth gathers the information he needs to save Brennan. Let me know what you thought of this one in the box below; I'm always happy to hear from readers. Once again, you may ask me ONE question that I promise to answer truthfully unless it spoils a specific, major plot point of the story. Alternately, you may ask for the next chapter's song. _**

**_Either way, thank you for reading!_**


	9. Copy Of A

_**AN: More new readers! I'm so happy to have you along for the ride. Each and every review is such a treat and keeps me motivated to deliver.  
**_

_**Pacing... it's pretty critical in my books. I had a choice to make with this chapter. It ran far longer than originally outlined, and I debated whether to post a monster or split it up. In the end, I decided I wanted to get this all out there in your heads and move on to the next chapter, which will be one HELL of a rollercoaster. Consider this a revealing stroll down memory lane.**_

_**I also have to give a huge thank you to razztastic, who is an amazing writer. So amazing. My stuff's crap in comparison. She has several great stories, one of which is her collection called Roots and Wings. It's her version of the future of B&B, Hodgela and their kids and well, it's my headcanon now. I asked her very, very kindly if I could borrow her Christine and Michael for this story and she obliged me. I hope I did them some sort of justice (likely didn't) but I DO hope you all go read Roots and Wings. It's sweet and laugh out loud hilarious.**_

_**Shutting up now. **_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed. Dialogue borrowed from episodes is strictly for context and continuity; no infringement intended.  
**_

* * *

___"I am just a copy of a copy of a copy  
Everything I say has come before  
Assembled into something into something into something  
I am never certain anymore  
I am just a shadow of a shadow of a shadow  
Always trying to catch up with myself  
I am just an echo of an echo of an echo  
Listening to someone's cry for help..._

_I am little pieces little pieces little pieces_  
_Pieces that were picked up on the way_  
_Imprinted with a purpose with a purpose with a purpose_  
_A purpose that's become quite clear today..."_

_**Copy Of A - Nine Inch Nails**_

* * *

The days keep coming, but none of them bear any relevance to his mission.

He has the oh-so-fun experience of reliving the day Bones met Cam as her boss, not merely her partner's ex-flame from college. The icy exchanges between them at the scene of the train crash are catty, particularly on Cam's end of matters. It's clear that she plans to claim him like a piece of property and for some stupid reason, he can't quite argue her down. _Mental journal: Brennan and Cam have come a hell of a long way over the years_. It's not necessarily relevant to saving her, but it's noteworthy all the same.

He awakens next on a plane to the desert, where Angela's boyfriend has gone missing and Bones is there to help (and, of course, pissing off the local law enforcement). She truly has a gift for infuriating first responders whom she deems as average or simply "not the best" and while he knows she's learned to tone it down, he still winces uncomfortably as he works alongside Younger Brennan.

From heartache to heartache: he wakes up next at 35, a day that begins with the sudden fill-in-the-blanks mumbo-jumbo informing him that Bones is about to sail away into the sunset with _Sully_. His coworker, which strikes him as a habit of hers, considering he'd 'remembered' last week that she'd once dated the Assistant Director. He floors it on the way to the marina, even abusing his siren a little to squeeze past particularly nasty traffic. He arrives in time to understand the exchange at a distance: she turns him down.

It's the first time in their history where she's chosen to stay when faced with an adventure or journey of some kind. _Mental journal: Bones hasn't always left me. She's stayed. _

It's not much, but he's grasping at magical time-travel straws at this point. Because any day now, he knows he will awaken on _that day_. It all has to mean something, doesn't it? He pays attention but some days, it seems like time is punishing him.

Take the day he wakes up 41 and finds out that his partner is about to be arrested for murder because a computer hacker psycho has decided to frame her - and is doing a bang-up fucking job of it. _Mental journal: I am powerless without my badge and gun. Useless. And Christopher Pelant needs to be put down_. It's a day of anger and sorrow, of fear for her life, of beautiful moments dashed by deception revealed. She leaves him. _Again_. Leaves him standing on the steps of the church where only moments before, they'd christened their daughter. It takes incredible restraint not to punch Max in the face; it takes all the more not to break down and cry in front of him.

The one bright spot in the misery is his knowledge of how his life works now. Two hours into the bullshit interrogation by Agent Flynn, he is left alone and immediately rests his head on the table, succumbing to exhaustion.

From eaten by wolves to eaten by dogs: he jars awake in a moving vehicle and hisses in agony. Hodgins is driving like a maniac and he is clearly in need of a hospital. What the hell is he doing in this car?

_She's in trouble_, his mind tells him. _Kenton. It's your fault, your mess._

"Over there," Hodgins says, pulling in beside the units Booth realizes he's called in.

_The two bodies. The false lead nudging at Hollings. Hodgins noting that people don't really change. He'd put it all together and realized with sickening clarity that the guy he'd entrusted her safety to was the murderer himself. _

Every breath he draws stings but he can't - won't - let it show. The Agent on scene is Walker, a "by the books" kinda guy, no improvisation. Brennan would call him a follower, not a leader.

"We used thermal imagery to see what activity there was inside the buildings. Found a crack house, a couple of squatters. Was about to move in here next," Walker says.

"No, no, no," Booth replies in frustration. "He hears noise, you know, he could freak out and kill her. We got to be careful."

"There's no _we_, Booth."

_By the damn books._ Maybe Walker's not wrong about Booth being anything but fit to go inside, but he's forgetting the core of a partnership: you trust each other with your lives. Bones trusts _him_. She trusts _his way of doing things_. There is no way in hell he's not going after her.

"Yeah, I'm going in with you."

"You can barely stand!"

_Did this guy not get the goddamn memo about us?_ With a glare that begs Walker to challenge him, to give him a reason to hurt him, Booth repeats himself. "I said, I'm going with you. _Give me my gun_."

A heartbeat, and another. Walker's gaze averts slightly as he hands Booth a weapon. "Bring me that vest for Booth." A glint of victory is in his eyes as he passes it to him. "Wear this."

Booth inwardly groans. This is why Walker will never be more than entry-level: he's too worried about his water wings to actually dive in and learn to swim. He accepts the vest begrudgingly and quickly realizes there's no way in hell he can maneuver himself into it with a broken clavicle. Which means he's not wearing it.

"Yep. Alright, you know what?" He tosses the vest to Hodgins, who's practically chomping at the bit to get in on the action. "You can come too. Alright, put that on and you stay back."

"I can do that."

They take the warehouse easily, the squatters scattering in relief as they recognize that it's not their drugs the Feds are after. A chain fence door yields to the group and they edge forward, Booth mindful of every sound, every footfall. His ribs shift uncomfortably and he groans, to which Hodgins makes a crack about pudding. Damn Bug Guy. Why'd he bring him? Oh, right: he'd helped Booth escape the hospital in his wind-up toy car. Rich people and their impractical cars.

Her keys are the first trace, Hodgins pocketing them at Booth's cue. Has she been leaving a breadcrumb trail or did she lose them accidentally? None of it matters moments later, when he hears Kenton's voice over the din.

"I'm not like him at all," Kenton insists as Booth edges around a corner. "The things I have to do to you, you'll be gone first."

Dogs. He can smell them before he spots them, smell the dirt and piss. And then he sees her: gagged, bound and frightened. She's been struck. Booth feels the rage rising within him.

"You'll never know a thing," Kenton is saying. "I never expected anyone to find out..."

_No one expects Temperance Brennan, you sad piece of shit_, Booth snarls as he steps into the room and fires. A hit, and Kenton is down. At full strength, he would have charged the bastard, beaten his face into the concrete for _daring to strike her_, for wounding his partner, for threatening her life. The cavalry swarms Kenton and Booth presses onward to where frantic blue eyes are staring at him. The gag is tugged free easily enough, but his arm - there's no strength to lift her up as readily as he should be able to.

"Alright, okay, alright... Hold on," he soothes her, glancing at the rig.

A solution. He ducks his head under the hook and between her arms, and with everything he can muster, he leverages the forces of his shoulders to free her from the hook. They fall to their knees - him out of agony as he feels that damn clavicle splinter further; her out of adrenaline crash - and he embraces her, her arms still wrapped around his neck.

"It's okay, I'm right here... It's all over, okay, shh... I'm right here..."

The reassurances fall from his lips as she shudders against him, the warmth of her body such a huge relief. He made it. He's rescued her. The crash sets in for him as well, magnifying his pain several times over. It's worth it as she pulls back and looks at him with a mix of gratitude and surprise.

"How did you get out of the hospital?"

"Hodgins gave me a ride. Maybe... Maybe you could give me a ride back though, huh?"

She hugs him again, more warmth, less fear, and he does his best to hide his agony until she starts fighting her own trip to the ER for a check-up. With a little grimace and a few sighs of pain, they bargain: she'll ride in the ambulance if he rides with her. Easy deal. His hand is clutched in hers as the morphine they've injected him with overtakes his senses...

* * *

**Age 36. **

Gormogon is the word of the day as they stake out the post office, waiting for a weird deer artifact to be picked up by the smuggler and presumed murderer of one Kristen Reardon, a Jeffersonian intern. _Mental journal: a lot of my flashes recently have involved Bones or her coworkers in danger. I don't know if this has any relevance to what happens to her in the future, but I suspect there's a pattern I'm meant to pick up on._

He banters with her, proposes a game: _Who will come for Iraqi Bambi_? She is clearly pissed and while he understands the root cause - anger at one of their own being the perp - he feels a need to push her on this one. It's a mistake he's made before himself with Kenton, to nearly dire consequence. And when one of the interns strolls up to claim his smuggled prize, Booth is only half-happy. She hides it neatly, but Bones is _hurt_. She admits the truth later in the night as they drink post-paperwork from paper cups - the finest the Bureau has to offer.

"I'll tell you what else I know," he prods. "What you're taking hard is, uh, the fact that it happened in your house."

"It's not my house!"

_Literal interpretation._ He tries again. "Not where you sleep, okay! Your favourite place, the house of _reason_: the Jeffersonian."

"Oh." And the denial begins: "It's not my favourite place."

"Yes, it is."

Indignant, she remains evasive. "What? No, it's not - how do you know?"

He reaches for the bottle of booze, prepping two new shots as he explains. "Daffodil. Daisy. Jupiter. Okay, I'll tell you what else I know." He lifts his cup in a toast to her, hoping to keep things light. "You were hoping it was Gorgonzola."

The shots are knocked back in rapid fashion as she replies. "_Gormogon_." She smashes her cup with her fist, punctuating it.

"Ah! So you admit it?"

Her eyes have that lovely sheen of intoxication as her cheeks flush slightly and she chokes on a syllable or few. "Accidentally! Does... does that count?"

"Yes," he tells her, softening his voice as her face falls. "Look, all the scientists and the squints and the eggheads, they wanted it to be a serial killer so it wouldn't be one of _them_."

"Them?"

"You."

"Me?"

This is starting to feel very Abbott and Costello now. "One of you. You were all offended that it was _one of you_."

A gear shifts and her thoughts click into place. "You know what? I _am_ offended."

"I just said that." Exasperated, he pours another shot. He's going to need it, clearly.

"I'm offended!" she repeats. "Because...because, like..."

"Because you were betrayed by one of your own," he supplies, Kenton coming to mind once more.

"Yes." She studies him for a moment in earnest, then softly asks, "Are you going to betray me?"

The air itself crackles with the current flowing between them. He could tell her so many things, few of which would make sense without a shared journey through a life without order. He could tell her that all he's thought of since he changed their study date into a real date is the taste of the lip gloss she'd worn (honey and vanilla). He could tell her that he's loved her for a decade or more. But none of this will be good for her, no matter how his heart aches for her echoed devotion. So instead, he locks his gaze upon her and very seriously tells her one word: "No."

And then, he grins. Slowly, her own lips curl upward as she brings her paper cup to meet his. "Nonetheless, I shall be vigilant," she teases.

They drink again, and he's lost count of the number of rounds - maybe it's twelve, or fourteen - but it's a pretty big number now. "Nonetheless?"

She chuckles with him, then asks worriedly, "I'm not gonna have a headache tomorrow, am I?"

She will, but he refuses to tell her so. It'll only inhibit her, after all. So he playfully remarks on this being their own experiment of sorts and the shots keep coming until the two of them are staggering out of his office, arm in arm. She rocks backwards on her heels as the elevator descends from the fourth floor to the ground level and rushes to plant a hand against the wall to steady herself.

"You okay, Bones?"

"I'm gonna have a headache," she whines.

"That's okay, we'll have them together."

She swings at his arm wildly, somehow misses and stumbles out of the elevator in the process. "Booth! It's not funny!"

"Yeah, it is." He chuckles as she wavers back and forth, storming out onto the sidewalk. "C'mon, Bones! Don't be like that."

"I am being... being... Whatever!" Her hand waves a cab over from across the street. "You're not being a good partner right now."

"I think I am. I helped you unwind after a difficult case, and now I'm going to see you home." He pulls open the cab door, holding it for her. "Get in and slide over."

"I don't need a chaperone!" she protests angrily.

"Well, then maybe I need to see you home safely, alright?"

She sighs, shaking her head. "It's unfair when you look at me like that," she mutters, sliding over as requested.

"Look at you like what?"

"Like I'm the most important person in the world," she replies. "It's... manipulative."

He raises an eyebrow in irritation. "I'm manipulating you now?"

"I don't know! You tell me." Her arms fold over her chest as she slouches in the seat.

His hand reaches for her chin, tilting her face towards his. "Temperance, you are my partner. You are absolutely one of the most important people in the world to me. Don't ever doubt that for a second, alright?"

Her lips part as if to speak, but she remains silent. She nods ever so slightly as he releases her, her eyes averting to the floor of the cab. Neither of them speak again until she steps into her apartment and offers him the spare room, which he accepts graciously.

_Mental journal: if I were to betray her, it would devastate Bones. I'm with her, all the way._

* * *

**Age 38**

He's chowing down on a well-deserved burger and fries when he gets the call from Sweets. _Lockdown. _There are men who are clearly not from the pencil-pushing, office-supply-procuring branch of the Federal government that they claim, holding his people hostage to examine remains. At first, he is puzzled. When Mr. White detains and shoos him away from the lab, he is incensed.

_Those are MY people_! he ruminates angrily as he dials Sweets for an update. Hodgins is in full conspiracy mode without touching the body, while Angela and the shrink seem to be just frustrated by forcible confinement.

"You're FBI property," he tells them. "If anyone's gonna lock you up, it's gonna be me."

"Why are these guys letting us use cell phones?" Hodgins asks.

"Why? Because whatever they're doing, these guys think they're untouchable."

He tracks down Hacker next, envious of his ability to simply enjoy dinner and unwind. He promises to make inquiries, taking the opportunity to mention his persistent interest in Bones, which pisses him off on top of his annoyance with the GSA. By the time he manages to reach the locked sliding doors to the lab - suddenly no longer responsive to his access card - he's fed up and uninterested in stealthy or peaceable solutions.

Pulling his gun from his holster, he fires into the glass, calmly stepping through the gaping hole he's created. He finally has the attention of Bones and the rest of the team.

"Booth!"

"Hiya, Bones!"

He's no idiot: he's intentionally holding his weapon in a gesture of surrender. Mr. White's lackey, however, still decides to spring like a jungle cat and take him to the ground. His head strikes the floor with a thud, his chest compressed by the weight on top of him.

"Booth?"

"Bones?" he calls weakly.

He's taken a gamble and it pays off: now that he has seen what should not have been seen, they must confine him to the lab as well, much to Mr. White's annoyance. The headache is worth the satisfaction of outwitting the standard issues.

The stress of the investigation, however, is almost too much to take. Hodgins is on a clear warpath to prove the government is essentially a lying piece of crap, spewing data about guns that he's never fired. When Hodgins points out that a perfect replica of Oswald's rifle just happens to be kicking around in the museum, he's more than happy to retrieve it - even takes Sweets along with him. The kid insists as they seek out the correct cabinets that the whole series of screwed-up events is testing one or more of them. Psychobabble. Annoying.

Now, catching Mr. White striking Hodgins? That's enough to slug someone.

"Hey! You wanna try me instead of some big-mouth scientist, huh?" White breaks the stare-off quickly, turning away slowly. "Yeah, I thought so. Come on." He offers a hand to a groaning Hodgins. "That Bush comment, to him? You're lucky he didn't paralyze you for life."

Of course, the bastard could attempt to shoot them if they fire off the damn replica without his express permission. Another stumbling block, until Booth realizes precisely what to do. _As they say, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit_. He rushes into the Bone Room, where Cam and Bones are studying the entry wound.

"Hey guys, hey, I'm gonna need some science jibber-jabber to distract these guys."

His partner's face lights up immediately. "Oh, you know who can do jibber-jabber?"

_Damn right I know._ "Who?"

She smiles brightly. "Me."

"Perfect! My lucky day. Come on." He catches a knowing grin from Cam and matches it. She knows him far too well.

Booth is no scientist, but he's learned a lot over the years by her side. It's how he knows that very little of what Bones proceeds to spew forth is actually truthful, never mind a coherent sentence. It's astonishing, the way she snows the idiot Agent. In the end, he gets a handgun and a single bullet to play with. Oh, and a cantaloupe-carrying, jury-rigged go-kart.

Wait, there's also the implications from the results and the reverse-whatever that there's two shooters. Yeah, this is officially the worst case he's ever worked. Why had he smashed the glass again?

He storms into her office and is completely unimpressed by the lack of alcohol. At least her couch is comfortable. He's sitting in quiet rage when she enters the room, somewhat tentatively.

"Two shooters. You know what that proves to me?"

"Only that there were two shooters," she replies.

"No, that those remains are not John F. Kennedy," he counters.

He feels her settle beside him more than seeing her. "Why is it so important to you that this not be President Kennedy?"

"If it was him, he was killed by two gunmen." It's more of a clarification of fact that the answer she seeks.

"Yes."

"And if he was killed by two gunmen," he continues bitterly, "then the government lied; they covered it up."

"Throughout history, governments have lied with impunity to other governments and their own citizens. Booth... does this have anything to do with the fact that your ancestor was a famous assassin?"

"Bones - "

"John Wilkes Booth," she continues, "who killed President Lincoln."

"You promised you would never mention that!" he snaps at her. "You said that to me."

And he leaves her, because she's throwing salt in wounds that are more complex than he can ever begin to articulate for her, wounds that do not leave their mark upon his skeleton. His phone rings even as she chases him, her voice cracking slightly as she promises not to mention his unfortunate lineage ever again. _Saved by the bell_, he muses angrily as he accepts Hacker's call, which amounts to more horseshit about congressional hearings and JFK and... It's all too much. Screw it.

Drawing a deep breath, he slips upstairs and hides in a corner, quietly observing as Bones continues to handle an arm bone, studying it intently. _What do you see?_ he wonders. Something's not adding up for her, and she's frustrated. Something White says frustrates her further and he's up and jogging down the steps, rushing to her side.

"She is _not_ happy," Sweets mumbles to him as he passes.

"So you found cause of death, you think it's Kennedy. What's left?"

"There are loose ends."

"Well, how long is it going to take you to tie up your loose ends here?" he asks.

"The big man always comes through," Cam says, almost purring. "Always."

And there is White, demanding his remains. In a hushed tone, he makes his peace offering to his partner. "I'm going to give you the time you need in order to find out the truth."

It's how he comes to cuff White and his cronies to various locations in the lab, leading them on a wild chase as his partner scurries off with arm bones in her hands. A flip here; a kick there; and soon, everyone's nice and settled, just in time to watch Hacker parade in like a bull in a china shop, army soldiers in tow.

_What a joke_. What Bones sees in that buffoon, he'll never understand.

He _does_ understand the pudding pop test: it's not JFK. He doesn't know who the damn bones belong to, nor does he care anymore. He can sleep at night and his people can leave this damn lab and get some much deserved rest. No reports, no paperwork, just breakfast at the diner and a leisurely walk with Bones afterwards.

"You know, you must think I'm crazy for being so happy it wasn't JFK."

"I'm very impressed," she counters, her arm laced through his. "You wanted the truth, even if it was going to hurt you."

"I learned that from you," he confesses.

She smiles shyly. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, sometimes you gotta go with your brain over your gut."

In true Bones fashion, she immediately answers, "That's nice. But I prefer that you _always _go with your brain over your gut because your gut cannot think."

_Mental journal: the truth sometimes hurts_, he muses as he prepares for bed later that morning. _But it's always a worthwhile pursuit. Bones is someone who will put the truth over her own safety, time and time again. I can't say I'm any different, but it does make me wonder whether her incessant desire for the truth is why she's shot._

* * *

**Age 62**

"Daddy?"

"Huh?"

"Hey, Uncle Seeley. Bad timing?"

Booth cracks a single eye open as a stunning woman and a rather Squinty young man argue in hushed tones.

"I told you we shouldn't have surprised him!" she hisses.

"Hey, you said you were Daddy's Girl and you had _carte blanche_ to show up," the young man counters.

Her hands come to rest on her hips in a haughty stance. "Ugh, you and your wonderful ideas. Just like that drag club you took me to last month."

"It is _not my fault _that the guy I am destined to marry happens to work at said club, nor is it my fault that the ladies wanted you to join them on stage for a rousing rendition of 'Firework'."

Booth watches from his couch with bemusement as they continue to argue, oblivious to his presence. _Christine_, he suddenly understands. _And Michael_. The facts fill in for him: best friends since childhood; zero romantic interest (Michael is gay, while Christine is the girl who slugged a jock for mocking him in senior year); neither of them married or seriously dating.

"So, who's going to wake Dad?" Christine asks.

"Your father, your funeral," Michael grumbles.

"Funeral," Booth echoes, his heart sinking.

"See what you've done?" Christine snaps. "Do you see? Daddy, how are you? Michael forced me to bring him along so he could demonstrate how far his metatarsals can slide down his esophagus. Impressive, isn't it?"

"There's a swallowing joke in here somewhere," Michael mumbles as Christine hits his arm.

She leans over to embrace him and for a moment, his breath hitches: she is so very much like her mother. Her jaw structure, her shoulder-length hair framing her face, her smile - all Bones. He clings to her tightly, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"It's so good to see you, Chrissie. And you too, Michael. How're Jack and Angela?"

"Oh, they're great! They left for Paris last week, so Mom's obviously over the moon. She also feels the need to remind me of precisely where, when and how I was conceived in Paris, so that's always a grand time," he adds, scrunching his face in disgust.

"And now we all know where you get your penchant for nosiness from, don't we?" cooed Christine.

"You two never change," Booth notes happily, shaking his head. "Why are you disturbing my quiet retirement living?"

"I wanted to take you out for dinner," Christine replies with a grin. "I know we're doing the big family deal for your birthday next weekend, but I thought it might be nice to do something a little more intimate. Michael insisted he tag along. Sorry about that."

"Seeley, I apologize for your daughter's lacking manners. We all tried our best," Michael shoots back with a grin.

"Manners! Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins, do _not_ get me started..."

Booth has seen and heard enough. "So my watch says it's three. Can an old guy grab a power nap and possibly a sedative before stepping out on the town with the younger generation?"

"I could definitely use a nap after the drive from New York," Christine replies. "You gonna nap at home or steal Parker's room?"

Michael shrugs. "Parker's room is fine by me. I get bragging rights."

_Parker. Right, he's a rock star_, Booth realizes. Billy Gibbons had facilitated that change in career plans, although bittersweet truths lay beneath the surface. _Science doesn't feel right anymore,_ he could hear Parker say. _Not without Temperance_.

"Alright," Booth says loudly. "Five?"

"Five," Christine echoes.

As the two young adults head upstairs, he catches a hushed whisper from Michael: "So, you're definitely telling him about Andrew, right?"

_Andrew?_ For once, nothing comes. Actual news for a change? Booth sinks back down on the couch, hugging an old pillow to his chest. He senses this is something important and life-changing, which pains him deeply.

Her mother isn't here to share it, and that's a tragedy. A preventable one. And while spending some time with the confident, caring woman his daughter has become is appealing, spending this future with Bones is more essential. Pressing his eyes closed, he wills fate to send him to the right time and place to make it right.

* * *

**Age 36**

"Booth?"

He startles awake, wincing as a spasm shoots down his back. Standing over him, clad in a cotton tank top and silk pajama pants, is Bones. She's clearly confused but also in a state of sorrow: her eyes are rimmed red, her face pale and weary.

"What's wrong?" he asks immediately.

"Nothing. I mean... Why are you asleep on my couch? That can't be beneficial to your back."

"Stating the obvious, Bones," he mumbles, arching backwards in an attempt to loosen the knots.

Why is he here? _Zack_, his brain answers immediately. _Zack is Gormogon_. And Bones is taking the truth extremely hard. The prodigy, her friend - he'd betrayed them all... and in her mind, it was somehow her fault. He'd driven her home, ordered Thai and crashed on her couch just in case she needed him.

"You didn't have to stay," she demurs.

"I did. After what's happened... You needed to know that I'm here. That I'm not going anywhere."

She nods slightly, deep in thought. "I know that. I do."

Booth pats the couch beside him. "Can't sleep?"

"Not well," she admits. "I was going to work on reviewing a few papers I've neglected - "

"Uh uh, no work," he admonishes her. "You're on leave for a few days, and that means _rest_. Personal care. All that psychological crap Sweets was on about earlier."

"If it's crap, why should I heed his advice?" she challenges, leaning against his shoulder.

"Because I said so, and I'm not full of crap."

Silent moments pass as they remain on the couch, quietly contemplating recent events. For Booth, life has been beyond chaotic and yet, nothing feels helpful or clear. He still doesn't know anything about the case she was working the night of the shooting, nor does he understand _why_ she went back to the lab so late. Why wouldn't she be home with him and Christine?

"Do you have Parker tomorrow?" she asks.

"Uh yeah, Rebecca's dropping him off around noon."

"Do you have any particular plans?"

He reads between the lines and gives her shoulder a squeeze. "I was thinking the zoo, maybe. Did you want to join us? He loves it when you come with us."

"He does?"

"Sure! You're a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about animals and plants. You're a curious kid's dream, Bones. All I'm good for is buying ice cream and making monkey noises."

She smiles up at him. "Then I would very much like to join you."

Booth nudges her gently, gesturing for her to stand up. "If you're going to trek through the zoo, you'll need your rest. C'mon, back to bed."

"Booth, I've been known to go over 50 hours without sleep while on research digs - "

"Yeah, not on my watch," he interrupts. "No sleep, no Parker."

He walks her down the hall as she gives him that disgruntled look she throws his way at least once per case. "Infantilizing me is not necessary," she snaps.

"I'm not. I'm taking care of you." He sighs deeply, pausing at her bedroom door. "I haven't been here for weeks, Bones. Just go with it, will ya?"

"Fine. But only if you take the spare room," she bargains.

"Music to my ears. Goodnight, Bones."

She hugs him suddenly, hands thrown around his neck and he squeezes her tight against his chest, baffled at the emotional gesture. His palm moves in large circles, sweeping between her shoulder blades and down the centre of her back for a long minute. When she pulls back, her eyes are moist.

"Hey, shh, what's wrong?"

"Just... Don't die again," she whispers. "Promise me."

"Bones - "

"Promise me, Booth."

It's irrational. It's impossible to fulfill. He nods in agreement anyway and she retreats quickly, shutting the door behind her. Baffled, he opens the door across the hall and strips off his shirt, her words echoing in his mind. _Don't die again. Promise me._ It's a promise he wants her to make as well. Because those words... No. He can't hear them again. He won't.

* * *

**_So, dear readers: why do you think Booth is jumping through these particular moments? Are they helpful? Enlightening? Let me know what you think and also feel free to suggest more moments from the history of B&B that stand out as defining their relationship or characters. There's another walk down memory lane near the end of this tale, and I'm very open to suggestions.  
_**

**_I would love to hear from you... Have you caught on to anything you perhaps didn't see in earlier chapters? Wild theories? Favourite sites to surf at work? Do share if you like. Either way, thank you for reading!_**

**_Update coming soon, by the way, for The Mixed Tape..._**


	10. The Grace

_**AN: This was an incredibly challenging chapter for me, and I couldn't have pulled it off without the help of Covalent Bond to talk it through, even though she had no idea of what exactly the chapter was about for much of the conversation. Are you reading all of her stories? Get on that.  
**_

_**Music is always important, but I really, really suggest you listen to this song. Hit YouTube and find the full five minutes and change version instead of the radio edit. **_

_**I don't own Bones or Shuffle. Consider me disclaimed. Dialogue borrowed from episodes is strictly for context and continuity; no infringement intended. Mind the quote from Arthur Schopenhauer as well.  
**_

* * *

_"You pray to stars that can help you get by  
And all at once, you forget to try_

_I'd go there if you let me_  
_They're never gonna find me now_  
_My life is always empty_  
_and in and out of doubt_

_You're not coming back for me; these things they will never be_  
_I'm so used to being wrong, so put me where I belong_

_I'll get back to you_  
_God knows I try, but I still lose_  
_And I get back to you_  
_These days run by, but I still lose_

_Angels say they can make you suffer_  
_They give and take like a vicious lover_

_When all this loses meaning_  
_You'll never want it back somehow_  
_Awake but still I'm dreaming_  
_And never waking up..."_

_**The Grace - Neverending White Lights**_

* * *

The ringing of his cell phone is nails on the proverbial chalk board. A pillow is pulled over his pounding head as it shrilly beckons him once, twice, three times. _Go 'way_, he thinks bitterly as he waits for the fifth ring to signal the automatic boot to voice mail.

A minute later, it begins again. A second pillow over the head and a growl as he desperately fights to shut out the din. Five rings and then, silence.

The house phone rings next.

Christine stirs in the next room, whimpers emanating from the monitor as Booth concedes defeat and rolls over. Fumbling with the buttons of the cordless phone, he barely manages to get the receiver to his ear when he first hears the weeping.

"Bones?" he asks softly.

"It's Angela," the caller manages in a breathless rush before choking back another sob. "Booth, you need to... Oh, _fuck_!"

An empty bottle of scotch hits the floor as he hurries to his feet. The familiar ache runs through the soles as he hits the light switch in the corner and suddenly, it clicks: _Age 42_.

"Angela, what's wrong? Where's Temperance?"

"She... _The blood!_ Oh my God, oh my God... Booth, she..." A shaky, loud breath is drawn on the other end as she struggles to pull herself together. "They said George Washington."

"I'm on my way, Angela. Can you get there safely?" he asks, stripping off his sweat pants.

"Security called a cab... I'm waiting outside... They said it's a... cr-crime scene."

On his dresser, a pager begins to vibrate. He stares at it incredulously. Surely, they don't expect him to... investigate?

"I'm on my way," he affirms. "I'm coming, Angela."

She breaks down into quiet sobs, ending the call without another word.

His head spins as he bends to grab a pair of jeans off the floor, his stomach rolling. _It's already happened. She's been shot. _Again and again, those two sentences echo in his skull, his vision blurred with rage and inebriation. _Why am I drunk? Why the hell am I too late?_ It has to be a cruel joke. It has to be.

This... shuffling life... It wouldn't force him to endure it anew... Would it?

Christine breaks into a wail and Sweets is there before Booth can manage to stumble to her side. He lifts the distraught child into his arms, rocking her gently.

"Hey Christine," Sweets murmurs. "Everything's fine. Bad dream?"

_My life is a bad dream_, Booth thinks bitterly. "Sweets, I need your help."

The kid turns around, taking in his disheveled clothing and nodding. "What's wrong?"

"Bones. Something's happened and she's being taken to the hospital. I... I can't drive," Booth confesses guiltily.

"Say no more. Here, take Christine; I'll throw on pants."

Booth cradles his daughter to his chest, pressing light kisses all over her face. _She knows_, Booth thinks sadly. _She feels something is wrong_. "Shh, Daddy's here... I'm going to make this okay, Christine. I promise."

Her whimpers soften as her tiny palm pads at his chin. "Ma?" she asks.

Booth feels the first tear sliding down his cheek. "We're going to her now," he murmurs.

"Booth?"

He glances up at Sweets and smiles gratefully. In the kid's hands are Christine's jacket and shoes. They work together to dress her in haste, the two of them rushing her off to Booth's vehicle. _Lights_. Booth flips the switch. not giving a damn. This is an emergency - _his _emergency. The government, the cops, they can all go to hell.

Christine is lulled to sleep by the rhythmic motion of a vehicle speeding to its destination, mercifully unaware of a father clutching his head in his hands. To his credit, Sweets expertly picks a route through low traffic backstreets and main thoroughfares to George Washington. Twice, he calls Angela, but each call goes straight to voice mail. _Radio silence_. He sees little of the drive, aside from a nasty accident at an intersection near the hospital. An ambulance stands sentinel and Booth chokes back bile, thinking of his Bones on a gurney.

"Faster," he pleads with Sweets.

The kid pulls into the Emergency entrance in record time with a squeal as he jams on the brakes outside the main doors. "Go to her. I've got Christine," Sweets orders him.

Booth breaks into a run.

The waiting room is crowded: broken bones, wounds clutched in kitchen towels, flu-ridden seniors sitting miserably in the seats of cracked and torn leather. He searches them frantically for a familiar face, finding none. _Where's Angela? Why isn't she here yet?_

He seizes a nurse by the arm as she passes, yanking his badge from his coat pocket. "FBI. Where is Temperance Brennan?"

She shrugs off his touch, pointing to a desk across the room. "He'll know."

_He_ doesn't know. But he _does_ know that Angela is in the waiting room down the hall and that's a start. He ignores the pissed off security guards as he runs the entire way, calling for Angela. Her head emerges from a door on the left.

"Booth!"

They embrace tightly, a mess of tangled hair and bodies wracked with sobs. Angela is emotional, a loving creatures, while he... he's desperate. _There's something here that changes it, that saves her_, he tells himself as he leads her back to her husband. He wants to believe it, has to believe it. _A transfusion_, he guesses. _I can do that. I can do anything for her. _

And then, there is a doctor at the door and he knows - _he fucking knows_ - what the guy's going to say. It's written on the worry lines on his brow and the splashes of blood on his scrubs. _Her blood_. He's going to be sick.

"The family of Temperance Brennan?" he asks gingerly.

"You tell me she's okay," Booth demands, rising to his feet. "You tell me that Temperance is okay."

"Are you her husband?" the doctor asks.

"Yes," Angela lies immediately, joining Booth. "Please, how is she?"

The doctor hesitates. Angela begins to weep. And Booth... Everything begins to spin.

"She's okay," Booth insists. "Tell me. _Tell me she's alive_!"

The doctor shakes his head slowly. "I want to assure you that we did everything we could, but the blood loss - "

"NO!" Booth screams. "NO! That is the mother of my child! You... you go back there and you _try harder_!"

"Sir, I am so very sorry for your loss - "

Booth waves him away, pushing past him into the hall and glancing around wildly. "Bones is not a quitter. She would _never_ quit on anyone. You just have to... You have to help her," Booth pleads. "I can help her. I can. Tell me how and I'll do it!"

"Booth!" Angela wails.

"Where is my _partner_?" Booth pleads. At the other end of the hall, he sees Christine, Sweets clutching her tightly. "Where is her mother?"

"Sir, if you sit down with me for a moment, we can discuss that," the doctor tries again.

"I NEED TO SEE HER! I don't believe you!"

"Booth, man, come sit down," Hodgins pleads hoarsely.

"_She's not gone!_"

Things are a haze: crying, shouting, vomit-swirling-in-stomach, stumbling, agonizing pain. He can't breathe. He can't see, even as he blindly paws at metal doors, searching for her. Looking for a ghost. Because she is still dead and all of this hell, all of the days, it's been for nothing. _Nothing_. His chest aches and he clutches at it, knowing now that whatever he thought when Rebecca left him, when that plane flew off to Maluku, when he was captured and tortured, he'd never known devastation. He'd never endured a broken heart.

Until now.

Arms are grabbing and limbs are flailing and the shouting and wailing, it is so goddamn _loud_ and he understands that it is _him_, that _he_ is screaming and crying and nothing can make this okay, no one can make this right except _her_ and she is _dead_, and she _died alone_. There is a stab to his arm and the molasses encases his limbs as he comes shuddering and sobbing to a full and complete sedated stop at the foot of the operating table, where she lies cold and pale.

* * *

**Age 23**

He awakens in a cold sweat, clutching his chest with a gasp. Beside him, the alarm clock barks its warning at him. He's late for the first day of class. Again.

He's already (re)lived this day.

"What the hell is going on?" he mumbles as he rises to his feet.

This is a first in this chaos and as he steps under the spray of the shower, he is suddenly struck with the image of her lifeless body. He buckles forward, bracing himself against the shower wall. _I don't understand. Seeing this... it's not a gift. It's anything BUT a gift_. He's powerless to stop it; he understand that now. To be brought so close to an opportunity, only to be denied - it speaks volumes. God is punishing him for the lives he's taken, for the mistakes he's made. He has inflicted grief on men, women and children. It is now his turn.

A harrowing thought: _Am I the one who's dead?_

Purgatory... Could it really be possible that all of this is a lie? That the themes of betrayal and losing _her_ are echoes of the sins he's committed against others? Was _he_ the one shot, perhaps in the line of duty?

_Then why am I back here, on this day_?

He's powerless: whether this is death or life or time-travel, he's not the one at the helm. He can only go with it. So when he reaches the campus, he heads to his Introductory Sociology class, where the only empty seat is next to a young woman studying him with a piercing gaze, her skin a soft expanse of mocha.

"I'm Cam," she tells him as the professor enters.

"Call me Booth," he tells her.

Her eyebrow raises. "Only if you tell me what your real name is."

The flirting continues between the syllabus rundown and the opening definitions the professor drones on about. It's subtle - something he comes to learn is uncharacteristic of Cam - but it's welcome. He belongs here now, at least in one person's eyes. He remembers that he'd nearly changed his mind about college before Cam befriended him.

_Mental journal: if this is all still... the gift... does this mean that Cam is important to making things right?_

Lunch arrives and Cam urges him to tag along with her to the pizza joint near a sprawling expanse of grass where students love to linger beneath the sun's rays. He grabs two slices of pepperoni and a Coke and follows her to a shady tree in the centre of the action. _People watching_, she explains with a grin. _It's what Sociology demands_.

It's clearly an excuse to create an 'Us Versus Them' bond, but it's kind of cute, so he lets her get away with it. He admits his name is Seeley, and she confesses Cam is short for Camille, and they agree to respect each other's wishes.

"Your first day, huh? How'd you score Mondays off?" Cam asks.

"I'm guessing I chose the department with profs who hate them as much as I do," Booth replies, gnawing on a crust.

"Monday mornings begin at eight for me. Biology." Cam groans. "Instructor's got her head rammed so far up her ass, I'm pretty sure she's studying her own esophagus."

"Ouch. My condolences."

"On the bitch or the early morning?" Cam quips.

"Both!" Booth chuckles. "I've got an early Friday morning for Intro Politics, if that makes your day brighter."

"Ew. That's just cruelty, especially with Thursday pub nights. You paid attention at Frosh Week, didn't you?"

Booth shakes his head. "I skipped it."

Cam side-eyes him briefly. "Are you a social recluse or just disgusted by 'Go! Team! Go!' school spirit?"

"I'm actually in School Spirit Anonymous. There was an incident involving a mascot..." Booth shakes his head sadly, laughing as Cam slugs him in the arm. "Anyway, I'm sure you can get me caught up."

Cam winks, stretching out her slim, bare legs along the grass. Well aware of her assets even in youth, she's wearing a short skirt that belongs in a nightclub more than the campus. Scanning the throng of students, she points to a building diagonally across the street.

"Well, over there, I happen to know you can get a fantastic burger. It's also where you'll find the offices for peer tutoring, should you fall behind." Booth rolls his eyes and she nudges her head to a group of behemoth jocks kicking around a Hacky Sack. "And those would be the veteran football players. One of them tried to get me too drunk to say no. Idiot. I dumped a beer down the front of his jeans and slugged his nuts."

"Nicely done!" Booth replies. "And what about that building over there?"

"Prayer room, club offices, study space that most of the students employ as a sex haven. Mind the sticky spots."

Booth feels her before he sees her crossing the street, his eyes gravitating to her. _Temperance Brennan_. It strikes him now how very _young_ she appears to be, how small and yet stoic. Her backpack is worn, the straps frayed, and in her arms she clutches a large leather-bound book of some sort. Her auburn hair falls in long, loose waves mid-back, tucked neatly behind her ears. She would be the centre of male attention, were she not concealing her curves beneath a grey, oversized sweater, which hangs off her pale shoulder just enough to reveal a red bra strap. It's the mid-90s and grunge is fading from the fashion forefront, but Booth understands why she's wearing the garments: _armour_. He remembers her telling him at some point that the sweater was once her brother's, that he'd left it on the foot of her bed the morning he'd taken off and called Protective Services to take custody of her.

His heart aches for her, knowing what his younger self did not at first sight. And yet, he averts his gaze guiltily as he has a sudden thought: _She would be alive if she'd never met me_.

An awakening within. The evidence is suddenly so very clear. Without him, she never enters the field, never solves murders. Without him, she remains a research anthropologist, studying her ancient remains and undertaking digs in exotic places. Without him, she can still make the world a better place. Their eyes briefly meet, hazy blues that fade to grey in his mind's eye as her body lies motionless on a metal table and the knife twists deeper in his gut.

"Hey _Seeley_, who's caught your eye?" Cam asks, jabbing his arm.

"Don't call me Seeley, _Camille_," he deflects.

"Don't call me Camille. Seriously, whatcha looking at?"

_I understand now. I understand why I'm here again, why I'm still leaping through time. _The memory of her body against his, the joy her laugh brings, their child - it all rushes over him as she crosses in front of them, oblivious. The bottle of scotch hitting the floor as he got the worst call of his life from Angela... _We must have fought_, he realizes. _She went to the lab to get away from _me. The first time this day happened, he'd asked Cam for her name, mesmerized and suddenly shy.

"That blonde over there is competing with you in the short skirt department," he jokes, pointing out the group walking just behind the woman he loves.

Cam glares at him. "Yeah, but my thighs are far nicer, or haven't you noticed?"

A quote comes to mind, something some philosopher once said: "_It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain_." It's all so clear now. _I can save her_, he realizes with a heavy heart. _I have to pay the price_. His hand pats Cam's leg playfully as he grins to mask his pain.

"Oh, I've noticed. What was that about study rooms?"

_If I never meet her, she'll be safe. I have to let her go_.

With one final glance over his shoulder, he and Cam disappear into the crowd, her arm linked through his. It only reminds him of how good Bones feels by his side in comparison.

* * *

It is a long, sleepless night as he contemplates the gravity of what he's done.

He's changed history. Again. Already, the tattered threads of memory seem to be fading in his mind. He can recall brief snatches of conversations over studying and coffee at the all-night diner, but Atlantic City is crumbling like so many childhood sandcastles against the high tide of the shore. There's an airport... Maluku? No, another one... but not?

Booth no longer knows what's real. He simply knows the reason why he's done what he's done. He loves her too much to be the cause of her demise.

He tosses and turns violently, unable to make sense of the future now. Will he wake up tomorrow in the present - whenever that is? Will he wake up 23 and live his entire life all over again? Had he ever lived it in the first place? Will he remember her _at all_?

_Maybe it's better I don't_. Maybe it's better to never know a love like theirs. You can't miss what you've never had.

"Goodbye, Bones," he whispers to his pillow. "I love you."

* * *

**2004**

"I could get you Gemma's file, but you know the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome."

He is fast remembering why he broke up with Camille Saroyan in college. Her way of wielding verbal daggers in a way meant to exert dominance over every situation drives him up the damn wall. Right now, she's being deliberately vague, just so he'll do _exactly_ what he's about to do.

"Okay, maybe I missed something?"

That damn little smirk... _Yep, intentionally vague the first time_. "How's about you get another point of view?"

"Partner up? No, you know that I don't do that."

"There's a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian," Cam continues, much to his annoyance. "I've read that she solved how a Stone Age hunter was murdered."

He is way, _way _too hungover for this discussion. "How does that help?"

"If she can solve a 4000 year-old homicide, maybe she can help on Gemma Arrington. I could release the remains to her."

Her offer to release the remains, should he take her advice and hire this investigator of the world's coldest cases is a catch-22 of a sort. It means admitting he can't solve this murder and nail the damn judge he _knows _to be the killer. _What about justice_? his conscience nags.

"You know, Cam, I'll catch up with you later. Forensics don't solve crimes, cops do."

"Same activity, same results," she retorts as he begins to bail. "Speaking of which, you look like you've been up all night."

"I'm fine," he lies, the money burning a hole in his wallet.

With a knowing smile, she counters, "Meaning you won?"

He gives her a decided look, a _shut the hell up before my bosses hear_ glare and she takes off for the elevator. And as she steps into that damn rickety elevator, his guilt, coupled with a desperate need to give Gemma Arrington her long overdue justice, is enough to break the stalemate between pride and compassion for the dead. He rushes to throw a hand between the doors, halting her haughty getaway.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey – what's that scientist's name?"

With a victorious smile, she answers him: "Temperance Brennan."

As the elevator door closes, he stumbles back into the wall as if struck. Colours and sound roll over him like a tidal wave and he makes his way to a nearby bathroom and locks himself in a stall.

Drinks in his office after a case. Coffee outside the courthouse, awaiting the day's proceedings in her father's trial. A night spent curled around her frame, sharing their grief and fear at what morning might bring. Tormenting Sweets in therapy. That first night of Christine's life, their slow dance to the radio as their daughter slept peacefully upstairs. He _knows_ Temperance Brennan. He _loves _her.

_I'm still jumping_, he realizes in a panic. _The jumps are real. This isn't real life. How did I not realize it?_ He resists the urge to punch the wall beside him in frustration.

_Now what?_

If he takes Cam's suggestion, he knows what will happen: Bones will find a passion in solving murders and giving voices to the slain. He will be unable to stay away from her. He will love her. She may love him. But either way, she'll be working in a lab one night and a killer will strike.

_But without her, Gemma is never given justice_.

"Checkmate," he whispers hopelessly. Someone will lose, no matter what he decides to do.

* * *

**_Checkmate, indeed... Ripples through time... Booth has undone the college years, but is it enough? What will happen if he never calls in the Jeffersonian for Gemma? I'd love your theories.  
_**

**_If you've ever wondered what I listen to while writing this story, I recently tweeted out the complete playlist. Find me on twitter (emptysthemepark) and I'll hook you up._**

**_4 more chapters... Will Booth and Brennan get their happy ending? Nothing is certain. Pay attention - to everything. *wink*_**


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